jsnv  vs.  Socialism 

M.  Slack  Wort  Kirvglcm 


THERE  can  be  no 
Hope  of  progress  or 
freedom  for  the 
people  without  the  un- 
restricted and  complete 
enjoyment  of  the  right 
of  free  speech,  free  press 
and  peaceful  assembly. 

Gift.of 

IRA  B.  CROSS 


GIFT  OF 

6 


Millionism  vs.  Socialism 


OR 


Timocracy  vs.  Democracy 


BY 

H.  SLACK  WORTHINGTON 


THE    SHAKESPEARE    PRESS 

114-116  EAST  28TH  STREET 

NEW  YORK 

1912 


ni 
-7 
"W73 


COPYRIGHT,  1912, 

BY 
H.   SLACK  WORTHINGTON. 


PREFACE 

The  time  is  rapidly  approaching,  if,  indeed,  it  has 
not  already  arrived,  when  there  should  be  a  political 
party  in  the  United  States  of  America  that  aggres- 
sively and  courageously  espouses  and  promulgates 
principles  in  favor  of  A  QUALIFIED  BALLOT  or 
EQUITABLE  EELATIVITY  in  the  exercise  of 
suffrage,  and  which  defends  property  rights  and  in- 
dividual ownership  and  management,  as  against  the 
SOCIALISTIC  and  GOVERNMENTAL  tendencies 
of  both  the  existing  great  organizations. 

SELF  preservation  is  the  FIKST  law  of  nature;  the 
preservation  of  the  offspring  is  the  second,  and  the 
preservation  of  the  race  or  society  is  the  third. 
Socialism  implies  that  the  preservation  of  Society  is 
the  first  law,  which  reverses  Nature.  It  follows 
therefore  that  individual  ownership  should  not  only 
be  permitted  but  encouraged,  till  both  self  and  off- 
spring are  adequately  protected,  plus  a  sufficient 
accumulation  for  the  preservation  of  society.  But 
private  ownership  does  not  signfy  PRIVATE  MO- 
NOPOLY—MILLIONISM  IS  NOT  BILLIONISM. 
Unless  private  monopoly  is  prevented  SOCIALISM 
which  is  PUBLIC  MONOPOLY,  will  likely  be 
adopted.  Timocracy  suggests  a  plan  by  which  pri- 
vate monopoly  can  be  prevented,  and  yet  private 
ownership  can  be  encouraged  and  protected  to  the 
fullest  extent  necessary  for  individual  excellence 
and  civilized  progress.  That  plan  is,  The  "Mil- 

3 

447927 


4  PEEFACE 

lionth  per  cent.  Anti-Monopoly  Tax."  See  chapter 
first  hereof. 

Private  ownership  is  right  in  principle  or  it  is 
wrong  in  principle.  A  compromise  position  is  un- 
tenable. If  it  is  right,  the  owners  of  property  should 
assert  and  defend  that  right,  and  the  attitude  of 
government  or  society  toward  millions  (but  not  to- 
ward monopoly)  should  be  the  same  as  its  attitude 
toward  any  subdivision  of  those  magnitudes.  If  it 
is  wrong  it  should  be  abolished. 

If  private  ownership  is  right,  then  private  con- 
trollership  and  management  is  also  right,  because 
no  thing  or  system  can  exist  without  carrying  with 
it  the  necessary  corollaries  and  concomitants  of  that 
existence.  Private  ownership  with  socialistic  con- 
trol (which  all  governmental  control  is)  constitutes  a 
condition  as  unreasonable  as  would  exist  under  so- 
cialistic ownership  with  private  control.  Control  in 
either  case  renders  nugatory  and  void  the  under- 
lying principles  of  ownership,  because  controller- 
ship  is  a  necessary  concomitant  of  possession  or 
ownership. 

Regulation  is  but  a  form  of  control  and  its  ten- 
dency is  toward  industrial  strangulation  rather  than 
toward  industrial  stimulation,  because  of  the  un- 
certainties that  would  beset  the  operation  and  man- 
agement of  enterprises  in  which  private  capital  is 
invested. 

Politics  and  business  do  not  work  well  together, 
and  SOCIALISM  is  but  the  natural  result  of  exist- 
ing tendencies  toward  PUBLIC  REGULATION 
AND  CONTROL,  AND  of  existing  tendencies  to- 
ward PRIVATE  MONOPOLY.  The  former  should 
be  called  GOVERNMENTAL  FETICHISM  and  its 
advocates  "FETICHISTS."  Many  Socialists  at 


PREFACE  5 

heart  are  as  yet  only  Fetichists  by  profession.  The 
ABUSE  OF  PRIVATE  OWNERSHIP,  WHICH 
IS  MONOPOLY,  should  be  prevented,  as  suggested 
in  the  following  pages,  but  private  owners  should 
CONTROL  what  they  own  and  MANAGE  THEIR 
OWN  BUSINESS. 

Democratic  Republicanism,  which  is  the  correct 
name  for  the  principles  advocated  by  both  of  the 
leading  political  parties  in  the  United  States  of 
America,  is  founded  on  the  idea  of  EQUAL  and 
UNIVERSAL  suffrage,  and  that  citizens  are 
i  'equal  shareholders  in  a  common  property " 
and  should  exercise  equal  voting  power.  Tim- 
ocratic  Republicanism,  as  proposed  in  the  fol- 
lowing pages,  is  founded  on  the  idea  of  REL- 
ATIVE and  QUALIFIED  suffrage,  and  that  citi- 
zens are  not  "equal"  but  that  they  are  " RELA- 
TIVE "  shareholders  in  a  common  property,  and 
should  exercise  "Relative"  voting  power.  Essen- 
tially, therefore,  the  issue  is  between  so-called  equal- 
ity, which  is  found  nowhere  in  nature,  and  which,  in 
social  organizations,  necessarily  becomes  a  political 
or  "boss"  oligarchy;  and  EQUITABLE  RELA- 
TIVITY, which  is  found  everywhere  in  nature,  and 
which  is  the  only  practical  guarantee  against  a  po- 
litical or  "boss"  oligarchy.  The  spirit  of  generic 
Democratic  Republicanism  is  hostile  to  all  educa- 
tional, rent,  or  tax-paying  qualifications  for  citizen- 
ship and  suffrage.  "Mass  Rule"  implies  no  qualifi- 
cation except  that  of  being  one  of  the  "mass."  The 
spirit  of  Timocratic  Republicanism  is  favorable  to 
the  aforesaid  qualifications,  relatively  exercised, 
and  proposes  a  plan  by  which  relativity  can  be  se- 
cured. 

It  holds  that  equality  in  suffrage,  which  controls 


6  PEEFACE 

social  organizations,  is  inconsistent  with  IN- 
EQUALITY in  the  ownership  of  those  organiza- 
tions, and  that  relative  excellence  in  personality  is 
more  equitably  shown  or  indicated  by  ownership 
and  usership  of  property  than  by  any  other  method. 

There  exists  to-day  throughout  the  entire  world  a 
strong  sentiment  in  favor  of  Socialism  or  public 
ownership  of  all  property,  and  of  the  means  of  pro- 
duction and  distribution.  There  exists,  also  a 
stronger  sentiment  in  favor  of  public  ownership  of 
so-called  "PUBLIC  UTILITIES. "  Both  of  these 
have  become  sufficiently  crystalized  and  pronounced 
to  be  seriously  reckoned  with  and  considered,  and, 
during  some  future  commercial  depression  may  be- 
come a  serious  political  issue.  It  is  held  herein  that 
the  adoption  of  either  to  any  considerable  extent 
would  cause  social  demoralization,  and,  if  persisted 
in,  social  decay. 

The  following  letter  from  one  of  the  world 's 
greatest  thinkers  was  published  in  the  Brooklyn 
Eagle  on  October  the  14th,  1902. 

It  is  very  suggestive  and  ominous,  and,  unless 
present  tendencies  change,  it  will  surely  prove  truly 
prophetic. 

Timocracy  seeks  a  way  to  counteract  these  ten- 
dencies, and  to  curtail  instead  of  expand  all  public 
or  governmental  ownership  and  operation. 

Herbert  Spencer's  letter  to  James  Skilton,  pub- 
lished in  Brooklyn  Eagle  October  14,  1902. 

FAIKFIELD  PENSEY  WILTS,  May  28th,  1894. 
DEAK  ME.  SKILTON  : 

I  believe  I  wished  you  good  speed  in  your  enter- 
prise, but  I  believe  your  enterprise  is  futile.  In  the 
United  States  as  here  and  elsewhere,  the  movement 


PEEFACE 


toward  dissolution  of  existing  social  forms  and  re- 
organization on  a  socialistic  basis  I  believe  to  be 
irresistable.  We  have  bad  times  before  us  and  you 
have  still  more  dreadful  times  before  you — civil  war, 
immense  bloodshed  and  eventually  military  despot- 
ism of  the  severest  type. 

Truly  yours, 

HEBEKT  SPENCEB. 


THE  GIST  OF  IT. 

The  writer  of  the  following  pages  appreciates  in 
all  its  force  the  desire  upon  the  part  of  men  and 
women  of  action  to  get  at  THE  GIST  OF  IT,  or  the 
ESSENCE  boiled-down-in-a-nut-shell  of  all  proposi- 
tions.   The  "'Gist"  or  essence  of  this  work  is  anti- 
monopoly    and    anti-Democracy    (generically    con- 
sidered) but  that  wealth  cannot  be  segregated  be- 
yond the  limit  herein  named  without  diminishing 
accumulation  which  would  be  injurious  to  Society. 
1st,  Under  the  "Millionth  per  cent.  Anti-Monopoly 
Tax"  (Chapter  first)  after  one  generation,  no 
one  person  could  begin  life  worth  more  than  25 
million  dollars,  but  could  accumulate  till  death, 
and  no  company,  on  a  ten  per  cent,  earning 
basis,  could  pay  over  5  per  cent,  on  60  million 
dollars.     Monopoly  would  be  impossible,   but 
private  ownership  encouraged. 
2nd,  Since  all  property,  except  that  yielded  up  in 
taxation,  is  controlled  in  the  ratio  of  INTER- 
ESTS, it  also  should  be  thus  controlled,  hence 
that  a  RELATIVE  QUALIFICATION  for  suf- 
frage is  the  only  equitable  basis  for  GOVERN- 
MENTAL OPERATION. 

3rd,  It  is  claimed  that  private  ownership  and  con- 
trollership  is  a  natural  right,  and  that  the  inter- 
ests of  the  public  will  be  subserved  better  by 
private  than  by  public  ownership  and  control- 
lership  of  all  enterprises,  that,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  offer  a  reward  for  human  activity. 
8 


THE   GIST   OF   IT 

4th,  It  is  claimed  that  wealth  must  accumulate  faster 
than  population  increases  if  living  standards 
are  to  be  improved,  and  that  accumulation  can 
be  more  certainly  guaranteed  by  private 
THRIFT  than  by  PUBLIC  WASTE. 
5th,  That  a  rich  man,  though  he  be  worth  many  mil- 
lions, is  only  a  CUSTODIAN  or  TEUSTEE  of 
his  superabundant  wealth;  and,  that,  if  he 
PROPERLY  INVESTS  and  does  not  PRI- 
VATELY APPROPRIATE  too  large  a  part  of 
his  TRUST  ESTATE,  he  is  a  better  and  safer 
CUSTODIAN  than  any  or  all  public  agents 
could  possibly  be,  but  that  Monopoly  should  not 
be  permitted,  even  by  the  "survival  of  the  fit- 
test, "  or  by  Socialism. 

6th,  That  WOMEN  should  vote  in  the  ratio  of  their 
interests  the  same  as  men,  but  that  it  is  inex- 
pedient for  them  to  hold  public  office  the  same 
as  men. 

AT  DETROIT,  MICH.,  SEPTEMBER  18,  1911,  PRESIDENT 
WM.  H.  TAFT  SAID:  "We  did  get  along  with  com- 
petition ;  we  can  get  along  with  it.  We  did  get  along 
without  monopoly ;  we  can  get  along  without  it,  and 
business  men  of  the  country  must  square  themselves 
to  that  necessity.  Either  that  or  we  must  proceed 
to  State  Socialism,  and  vest  the  Government  with 
power  to  run  every  business. " 

INTRODUCTORY  ESSAYS 

1st — The  Substructure  of  Sociology. 
2nd — Individual  Ownership  a  Natural  Right. 
3rd — Monopoly — Public  or  Private — Not  Right. 
4th — Publico-Private   Monopoly — Government  Reg- 
ulation of  Prices — not  Practical. 


10  THE   GIST   OF   IT 

5th — Justification  for  Anti-Monopoly  Taxation. 
6th — Magnitude,  Monopoly  and  Monstrosity. 
7th — The   Governmental  Idea — Fetichism. 
8th — The  Government  and  the  Opposition. 
9th — Patriotism. 

10th — State  Governments  vs.  Social  Progress, 
llth — Erroneous  Conception  of  Universal  Suffrage. 
12th — Actual  Democratic  Eule  an  Iridescent  Dream. 
13th — Eelativity    vs.    Equality — Individualism    vs. 

Socialism. 
14th— "  The    People    be    Damned "    or    Blessed— 

Which? 
15th— The  Power  of  the  Press. 


MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 
INTEODUCTOEY  ESSAYS. 

THE  SUB-STRUCTURE  OF  SOCIOLOGY. 
EQUITABLE  RELATIVITY  AND  THE  COSBIPSYSO. 

The  Universe  exists  and  moves  in  accordance  with 
natural  law  and  inexorable  conditions  or  it  does  not. 
If  it  does  not,  there  can  be  no  exact  science  in  any- 
thing. If  it  does,  Sociology  is  as  exact  a  science  as 
Cosmology. 

The  four  great  divisions  of  the  Universe  are :  the 
COSMOS,  the  BIOS,  the  Psychos  and  the  Socios— 
the  "COS  BIPSY  SO." 

Many  analogies  are  apparent,  and,  if  each  classi- 
fication was  thoroughly  understood,  analogy  would 
be  self-evident  throughout. 

In  each  the  normal  state  is  EQUITABLE  EELA- 
TIVITY.  On  no  other  basis  can  equilibrium  exist. 
From  an  aggregation  of  nebulae  to  an  aggregation 
of  human  beings  the  same  general  laws  prevail.  A 
Solar  System  and  a  social  system  differ  fundament- 
ally only  in  the  multiplication  of  effects.  In  a  solar 
system  we  see  EQUITABLE  EELATIVITY,  com- 
petition, rivalry  and  strife.  The  larger  body 
causes  the  smaller  to  revolve  in  the  cold  of  space 
around  a  center  of  gravity  often  within  its  own 
sphere,  and  ultimately  absorbs  the  smaller  within 

11 


12  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 


its  own  mass.  We  see  the  same  rivalry  and  strife 
in  Biology,  the  stronger  exist  by  the  destruction  of 
the  weaker.  We  see  it  also  in  Psychology,  and  none 
can  be  oblivious  of  the  fact  of  its  existence  from  the 
dawn  of  the  clan  or  tribe  to  the  Empire  of  to-day. 
We  see  also  great  waste  manifest  in  the  Cosmos. 
We  see  it  likewise  in  the  Bios,  the  Psychos  and  the 
Socios.  We  see  in  the  Cosmos  inexorable  law  or 
state  or  condition.  If  we  could  as  thoroughly  scru- 
tinize and  understand  the  Kinetics  of  the  microcosm 
as  we  can  of  macrocosm,  which  knowledge  we  may 
some  time  acquire,  we  would  see  that  all  activities  in 
the  Bios,  Psychos  and  Socios  are  equally  inexorable 
as  to  law,  state  or  condition.  If  not,  where  does 
said  inexorableness  cease?  Without  strife,  i.  e.,  an- 
tagonism between  centrifugal  and  centripetal  forces, 
a  solar  system  would  collapse.  Without  strife — 
subsistence  of  the  strong  by  the  destruction  of  the 
weak — a  Biological  system  would  collapse,  and  the 
same  is  true  of  a  psychical  system  or  a  social  sys- 
tem. All  states  of  being  are  resultant  and  conse- 
quential. There  is  no  spontaneity.  It  is  safe  to 
predict  that  a  co-operative  SOCIOS,  that  will  en- 
dure, will  never  come  from  a  competitive  Cosmos, 
Bios  and  Psychos.  If  socialism  as  to  all  human 
activities  ever  comes,  it  will  not  long  endure  until 
men  are  evolved  out  of  what  they  now  are  into  be- 
ings among  whom  nothing  but  socialism  could  ex- 
ist, ex  necessitate  rei. 

If  it  could  be  instituted  now  it  would  result  in 
retrogression  and  final  collapse  just  as  the  cessation 
of  strife  in  a  Solar  System  would  result  in  collapse. 
From  this  it  follows  that  all  PARTIALLY  socialis- 
tic systems  must  tend  toward  partial  deterioration 
or  collapse,  and  if  this  is  true  Socialism,  is  against 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          13 

the  Constitution  of  things,  and,  save  for  the  protec- 
tion of  individual  action  and  ownership  and  for  non- 
compensating  activities,  must,  in  the  outcome,  be  for 
the  worst  and  not  for  the  best  interests  of  society  at 
large. 

A  great  Capitalist  has  very  wisely  remarked: 
"The  error  of  Socialism  is  that  you  can  create  by 
formal  enactment  what  must  be  a  natural  develop- 
ment, and  carry  on  through  the  agency  of  men  se- 
lected by  some  political  method,  what  must  be  car- 
ried on  by  men  selected  by  nature."  "That  is  ab- 
surd, "  said  he.  "It  is  not  business." 

JOHN  D.  ROCKEFELLER. 

INDIVIDUAL  OWNERSHIP  A  NATURAL 
RIGHT. 

What  is  a  natural  right?  The  word  "right"  has 
several  meanings.  Ordinarily  it  is  used  either  in 
the  sense  of  PRIVILEGE  or  FREEDOM  or  in  the 
sense  of  justice  or  equity.  First,  man  has  the  right 
to  do  this  or  that:  Second,  it  is  right  that  man 
should  do  this  or  that. 

Primarily  it  must  be  considered  in  the  sense  of 
PRIVILEGE  or  FREEDOM,  and,  in  this  sense, 
what  has  man  a  right  to  do? 

Human  conclusions  are  usually  facilitated  by  re- 
ducing complexity  to  simplicity.  Assume,  there- 
fore, an  inhabitable  earth  in  all  respects  as  now 
save  that  it  was  inhabited  by  one  man  only. 

If  we  eliminate  the  idea  that  a  superior  being  or 
power  has  handed  down  laws  which  define  or  pre- 
scribe that  one  man's  privilege  or  freedom,  we  must 
conclude  that  he  would  possess  these  attributes  to 
the  extent  of  doing  whatsoever  he  willed  or  desired 


14  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

to  do,  and  that  his  accomplishments  would  be  limited 
only  by  his  own  power  or  might.  If  he  would  have 
the  privilege  to  do  whatsoever  he  willed,  he  would 
have  the  privilege  to  enjoy  the  usufruct  of  that  do- 
ing, hence  he  would  have  the  privilege  to  own  what- 
soever he  willed.  Suppose  at  this  juncture  another 
man  should  be  introduced.  Of  him  the  same  must 
be  admitted.  As  long  as  each  could  do  as  he  willed 
without  conflict  with  the  other,  harmony  would  pre- 
vail, but  whenever  one  trespassed  upon  the  privilege 
of  the  other,  discord  would  begin  which  could  only 
be  settled  by  compromise  or  force.  If  settled  by 
compromise,  then  the  use  of  the  word  i  i  right ' '  in  the 
sense  of  justice  or  equity,  would  arise,  and  any  vio- 
lation of  the  agreement  would  constitute  a  wrong. 
Whatever  is  true  of  one  man  or  of  two  men  is  true 
of  one  or  two  billion  men.  On  this  fundamental  ba- 
sis conclusions  must  be  reached.  If  men  have  the 
privilege  to  DO,  they  have  the  privilege  to  enjoy 
the  product  of  that  doing,  hence  they  have  the 
privilege  to  OWN — own  anything  that  they  can 
or  all  things  if  they  can.  When  men  become 
grouped  in  clans,  villages,  states  or  nations 
they  still  possess  this  privilege,  but,  likewise, 
other  men  have  the  privilege  to  define  or  pre- 
scribe what  may  be  done  or  owned  by  any  of  their 
number.  The  social  question,  therefore,  is  not  one 
of  privilege,  but  one  of  ABRIDGEMENT.  To  what 
extent,  therefore,  shall  each  individual's  natural 
privilege  or  freedom  to  do  or  to  own  be  abridged? 
Fundamentally  Timocracy  holds  that  it  should  be 
abridged  only  to  the  extent  of  protecting  each 
against  monopoly  and  vs.  the  viciousness,  unre- 
straint and  worthlessness  of  others.  It  holds  that 
monopolistic  private  ownership  is  a  type  of  vicious- 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          15 

ness  and  that  it  should  be  prevented.  Any  property 
that  is  exclusively  owned  might,  if  too  vast  in  its 
proportions,  be  confiscated  by  violence  or  force,  be- 
cause, just  as  a  man  has  the  privilege  of  owning,  so 
others  have  the  privilege  of  depriving  him  of  own- 
ing, and  they  would  likely  exercise  that  privilege 
if  too  seriously  oppressed.  Prevention  of  monopo- 
listic ownership,  therefore,  is  a  form  of  protection 
to  individual  ownership.  Those  who  believe  in  So- 
cialism, or  Fetichism,  must  conclude  that  man  has 
not  the  natural  privilege  of  doing  or  of  owning 
whatsoever  he  will.  If  this  idea  be  correct,  what 
would  have  been  the  status  of  the  one  man  in  the 
original  illustration?  Why  do  not  all  men  possess 
the  same  natural  privilege  that  one  man  possesses  ? 
It  is  not  the  exercise  but  the  abridgement  of  these 
natural  privileges  that  is  wrong,  hence  that  wrong 
should  be  confined  to  the  least  possible  sphere  of 
human  activity  that  will  insure  protection  and 
order.  Individual  liberty  for  the  exercise  of  fac- 
ulty is  abridged  if  individual  ownership  is  denied  or 
impeded  within  proper  limitations. 

If  it  be  assumed  as  the  fundamental  basis  that 
men  have  NOT  the  natural  privilege  of  doing 
(which  also  means  owning)  whatsoever  they  will, 
then  abridgement  to  any  extent,  even  to  the  absorp- 
tion of  individual  effort  and  of  its  products  by  the 
state,  as  is  contemplated  by  Socialism,  would  be  in 
order.  As  heretofore  stated :  Socialism  is  a  Public 
monopoly  which  will  come  if  Private  monopoly  is 
not  prevented. 

Conclusions  must  be  based  on  one  or  the  other  of 
these  original  positions.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive 
how  the  natural  privileges  of  men  can  or  could  be 
abridged,  save  by  some  outside  agency  or  by  men 


16  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

themselves  when  they  organize  in  societies. 
Abridgement  by  outside  agency  is  an  idea  long  since 
obsolete,  and  untenable.  Governmental  Fetichism 
now  threatens  freedom  of  individual  activity  and 
initiative,  and  to  the  extent  that  it  is  adopted  will 
contravene  the  natural  privilege  of  men  and  ulti- 
mately result  in  the  retardation  of  progress,  that  is 
to  say,  it  will  cause  less  crude  material  to  be  con- 
verted into  utilizable  forms,  less  accumulation  of 
wealth,  hence  lower  standards  of  living  than  we  now 

enjoy. 

\ 

MONOPOLY— PEIVATE  OE  PUBLIC— NOT 
EIGHT. 

It  is  contrary  to  the  rights  of  man  that  MONOP- 
OLY, either  PUBLIC  OE  PEIVATE,  should  be 
permitted  to  exist,  which  means  that  there  should  be 
no  combination,  partnership  or  co-operation  be- 
tween private  monopolists  and  public  commission- 
ers. In  their  desire  to  stifle  competition,  and  to 
perpetuate  monopoly,  some  monopolists  have  actu- 
ally proposed  that  the  Government  name  the  price 
at  which  the  products  of  monopolies  can  be  sold. 
That  this  is  misleading  and  perhaps  disingenuous  is 
obvious  to  any  fair-minded  and  sensible  man,  be- 
cause the  public  officials  would,  of  necessity,  have  to 
reach  their  conclusions  from  the  representations  of 
a  private  Bureaucracy.  Said  officials  might  be 
sympathetic  with  or  they  might  be  misled  by  the 
private  monopolist  and  thus  be  induced  to  name  or 
to  sanction  prices  that  would  be  far  in  excess  of 
justice  or  of  the  needs  of  the  enterprise.  It  would 
result  in  simply  shifting  the  responsibility  for  mo- 
nopolistic extortion  from  the  heads  of  private  offi- 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          17 

cials  on  to  the  heads  of  the  public  commissioners. 
The  private  monopoly  could  say,  i  i  Has  not  the  gov- 
ernment sanctioned  these  prices  ?"  The  funda- 
mental idea  that  PEIVATE  MONOPOLY  should  be 
allowed  to  grow  until  it  is  necessary  that  a  public 
commission  should  have  anything  to  do  with  prices 
except  to  limit  the  maximum  of  companies  to  which 
special  franchises  are  given,  is  repugnant  to  both 
reason  and  justice.  Prices  should  be  the  result  of 
COMPETITION— of  supply  and  demand— and  not 
the  result  of  the  dictum  or  decree  of  a  private  mo- 
nopoly, even  if  it  be  nominally  under  the  control  of 
commissioners.  Much  has  been  said  about  "ruin- 
ous competition. "  If  competition  is  "  RUINOUS, " 
then  SOCIALISM  is  the  remedy.  Society  cannot 
progress  half  socialistic  and  half  individualistic, 
more  than  it  could  exist  "HALF  SLAVE  AND 
HALF  FREE"  as  the  great  emancipator  so  wisely 
asserted.  SOCIALISM  constitutes  a  PUBLIC  mo- 
nopoly under  which  private  citizens  would  be  prac- 
tically SLAVES  to  public  OVER  LORDS. 

The  "COMING  SLAVERY"  prophesied  by  Mr. 
Spencer,  would  in  fact  be  realized.  Monopoly  of 
any  or  either  kind  necessarily  empowers  one  class  of 
men  (and  that  a  small  class)  to  exact  TRIBUTE  OR 
TAX  from  another  class  of  men  (and  that  a  large 
class)  which  constitutes  an  ABUSE  of  ownership, 
if  exercised  by  a  private  monopoly,  and  TYRANNY 
if  exercised  by  a  socialistic  or  public  monopoly. 

Self-respecting  men  will  not  tolerate  TRIBUTE 
OR  TAX  except  that  which  they  VOLUNTARILY 
impose  on  themselves  by  their  government  for  the 
sole  and  only  purpose  of  performing  certain  duties 
which  they,  as  individuals,  cannot  do,  or  which  offer 
no  reward  for  individual  effort.  No  man  or  com- 


18  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

pany  has  a  right  to  patronage  that  he  or  it  does  not 
merit  by  EXCELLENCE  OK  ENTERPRISE,  and 
the  offense  of  monopoly  is  in  no  wise  mitigated  be- 
cause its  prices  may  have  been  named  by  a  commis- 
sion which  may  have  been  dominated  or  in  some  way 
influenced  by  the  monopolists  themselves.  The 
course  to  pursue  is  TO  PERMIT  NO  PRIVATE 
MONOPOLY  that  requires  the  agent  of  a  PUBLIC 
monopoly  to  regulate  it.  Monopoly  is  not  necessary 
for  the  preservation  of  SELF,  OFFSPRING  and 
SOCIETY.  CUMULATIVE  TAXATION  will  pre- 
vent it  and  yet  leave  ample  reward  for  all  EXCEL- 
LENCE. 

Next  to  monopoly  the  OSTENTATIOUS  EX- 
ENDITURE  OF  WEALTH  is  harmful  to  society. 
This  cannot  be  prevented,  but  should  be  discour- 
aged. 

PUBLICO-PRIVATE  MONOPOLY:  GOVERN- 
MENT REGULATION  OF  PRICES  NOT 
PRACTICAL. 

The  proposition  that  the  Government  should  reg- 
ulate prices,  or  name  prices  at  which  the  products  of 
private  monopoly  should  be  sold,  is  impracticable 
and  more  unreasonable  than  out  and  out  Socialism, 
because  it  is,  in  fact,  disguised  socialism  (Publico- 
Private  Monopoly)  which  is  designed  to  perpetuate 
private  monopoly. 

The  price  at  which  a  commodity  sells  is  the  SU- 
PER-STRUCTURE of  all  business;  the  SUB- 
STRUCTURE is  all  the  rest  relating  to  business. 
No  super-structure  can  be  strong  if  the  sub-struc- 
ture is  weak.  The  former,  therefore,  must  be  con- 
structed or  regulated  with  reference  to  the  latter. 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          19 

If  therefore  the  Government  names  prices  it  must 
GUARANTEE  PROFITS,  which  means  that  it 
must  regulate  the  cost  of  raw  material,  the  price  of 
labor,  the  facilities  for  production  and  a  multitude 
of  incidental  and  necessary  conditions  and  concomi- 
tants of  enterprise.  If  the  Government  does  NOT 
regulate  these  essential  features  of  production,  it 
cannot  regulate  the  price,  but  must,  of  necessity, 
name  a  price  that  depends  upon  what  the  private 
owners  may  say  or  do  in  their  regulation  of  the  sub- 
structure or  of  the  necessary  incidental  features 
of  production. 

We  have  then  the  absurd  and  impracticable  con- 
dition of  the  Government  Monopoly  regulating  the 
price,  and  the  Private  Monopoly  regulating  every- 
thing that  must  in  practice  determine  that  price. 

It  is  absurd  to  hold  that  the  Government  could 
regulate  the  PRICE  and  NOT  guarantee  PROF- 
ITS; and  if  it  did  guarantee  profits  it  must  also 
regulate  all  the  necessary  agencies  by  which  profits 
are  made  possible.  No  power  on  earth  can  wisely 
regulate  the  Super-Structure  of  anything  or  system, 
and  NOT  regulate  the  Sub-Structure  of  that  thing 
or  system. 

Government  so-called  regulation  of  prices,  there- 
fore, must  be  only  a  perfunctory  service  depending 
on  private  monopoly  for  its  real  and  genuine  serv- 
ice, because  to  regulate  otherwise  must  mean  that 
it  shall  regulate  the  Sub-Structure  as  well,  or,  in 
other  words,  that  it  shall  practically  run  the  busi- 
ness, which  is  Socialism  pure  and  simple,  made 
worse  than  Socialism  as  proposed  by  its  votaries, 
because  the  benefits  of  the  Publico-Private  Monop- 
oly would  go  to  the  private  monopolists  only. 

There  is  no  compromise  position:  property  must 


20  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

be  PEIVATELY  owned  and  operated  or  it  must  be 
PUBLICLY  (SOCIALISTICALLY)  owned  and 
operated.  The  Government  should  fix  the  MAXI- 
MUM PRICE  for  all  Companies  to  which  special 
franchises  are  given ;  it  should  prevent  MONOPOLY 
— not  enter  into  partnership  with  monopoly. 

To  conceive  Government,  which  is  the  agency  of 
all  the  people,  entering  into  business  arrangements 
with  private  monopoly,  which  is  the  agency  of  only 
a  few  of  the  people,  is  an  absurdity  in  thought. 

Government  can  PROTECT  the  people  against 
monopoly  by  CUMULATIVE  TAXATION :  the  peo- 
ple require  no  other  protection,  and  should  consent 
to  no  other  until  they  adopt  SOCIALISM,  which  is 
a  monopoly  in  which  all  the  people  can  participate, 
through  OVER  LORDS  of  their  creation. 

THE  JUSTIFICATION  FOR  ANTI-MONOPOLY 
TAXATION. 

From  the  first  syllable  of  recorded  time  until  a 
comparatively  recent  date,  inter-transportation  has 
been  very  difficult  and  world- wide  transportation  has 
been  impossible.  During  all  of  this  period  com- 
munication has  been  no  easier  or  quicker  than  trans- 
portation. During  the  last  few  years  transportation 
has  been  facilitated  and  quickened  until  the  impossi- 
ble has  become  the  commonplace  and  months  have 
almost  been  reduced  to  moments. 

Communication  has  been  so  vastly  improved  and 
quickened  that  IT  has  become  almost  instantaneous. 

Under  the  old  regime  it  was  physically  impossi- 
ble for  one  generation  to  amass  fabulous  wealth 
because  the  difficulties  of  both  communication  and 
transportation  rendered  it  impossible  to  deal  with 


TIMOCBACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          21 

large  constituencies,  hence  large  production  in  one 
locality  was  useless.  Facilities  for  production  have 
also  grown  fully  apace  with  all  other  facilities.  The 
wage  slave  could  be  employed  only  to  produce  a  com- 
paratively small  output,  hence  the  profit  that  is 
justly  derivable  from  his  labor  was  so  small  that 
MULTI-MILLIONS  were  unknown.  With  increased 
facilities  for  production,  instantaneous  .communica- 
tion and  rapid  transportation,  a  large  output  is  easy 
and  large  constituencies  can  be  reached,  hence  multi- 
millions  can  be  accumulated,  until  world-wide  Mo- 
nopoly is  as  easy  to-day  as  the  accumulation  of  a 
competency  was  under  the  old  order  of  things.  Mo- 
nopoly under  the  old  order  was  just  as  objectionable 
as  it  is  under  the  new,  but  it  could  not  then  be  ac- 
complished except  by  PRIVILEGE,  SPOLIATION 
OR  CONQUEST. 

Monopoly  by  these  methods  has  been  almost  de- 
stroyed, and  its  destruction  and  prevention  when  re- 
sulting from  existing  methods  and  facilities  is  just 
as  necessary  and  reasonable. 

During  the  time  when  condition  have  been  devel- 
oping by  which  monopoly  has  been  made  possible, 
restrictive  measures  have  not  developed  pari  passu 
therewith.  If,  however,  restrictive  measures  (CUM- 
ULATIVE TAXATION)  had  developed  pari  passu 
therewith,  private  monopoly,  as  it  now  exists,  could 
not  have  developed  at  all,  and,  if  destroyed,  cannot 
again  develop. 

A  new  adjustment  therefore  is  imperative.  The 
people  should  assert  and  maintain  the  following 
position:  We  will  permit  individual  and  corporate 
wealth  to  accumlate  until  a  sufficiency  has  been  ac- 
quired for  self,  offspring  and  the  race  (society),  but 
beyond  that  all  shall  go  to  the  commonwealth.  Is 


22  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

this  position  a  reasonable  one!  If  not,  why  not! 
Colossal  private  accumulations,  which  tempt  lavish 
expenditure,  are  not  necessary  for  the  well  being  of 
the  individual,  and  his  offspring,  and  if  their  seques- 
tration or  prevention  does  not  diminish  wealth  ac- 
cumulation, they  are  necessary  for  the  well  being  of 
society.  It  is  not  reasonable  to  maintain  that  in- 
creased facility  for  production,  transportation  and 
communication  (by  which  alone  fabulous  fortunes 
are  made  possible)  should  be  permitted  to  create  a 
small  coterie  of  monopolists  and  the  balance  "all 
slaves. " 

It  can  and  ought  to  be  prevented  by  Timocracy 
or  some  similar  system ;  if  not,  it  will  and  ought  to 
be  prevented  by  Socialism. 

If  monopoly  is  to  exist  at  all,  all  should  share  in 
it. 

Give  us  Timocracy  or  give  us  Socialism,  is  the 
shibboleth  and  it  is  almost  tantamount  to  saying: 
' '  Give  us  liberty  or  give  us  death. ' ' 

There  is  a  homespun  maxim  that  "we  cannot  make 
omelets  without  breaking  eggs";  so  likewise  we 
cannot  create  "EQUITABLE  DISTRIBUTION" 
without  BEEAKING  MONOPOLY.  Unbroken 
MONOPOLY  is  as  useless  as  unbroken  EGGS.  If 
those  who  concur  in  these  opinions  have  no  better 
plan,  they  should  support  Timocracy  and  make  it 
better  as  soon  as  they  can. 


MAGNITUDE,  MONOPOLY  AND 
MONSTROSITY. 

Many  sincere  opponents  of  monopoly  have  stated 
that  MAGNITUDE  is  not  objectionable. 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCEACY          23 

To  this  it  may  be  replied  that  it  is  only  by  and 
through  magnitude  that  monopoly  is  possible. 

If  therefore  monopoly  is  objectionable,  magnitude, 
by  and  through  which  alone  monopoly  is  possible, 
must  also  be  objectionable. 

Monopoly,  from  the  Greek  "Monos,"  one,  and 
"poleo,"  to  sell,  means,  essentially,  exclusive  pos- 
session, or  the  Sole  power  of  dealing  in  any  com- 
modity or  of  handling  any  utilizable  forms  of  wealth. 

Technically  considered  therefore,  as  long  as  the 
smallest  fraction  of  ownership  is  held  by  one  person 
or  company  other  than  the  monopolist,  monopoly 
does  not  exist. 

It  is  well  known  in  practice,  however,  that  if  only 
one  moiety  of  any  industry  is  owned  by  one  man  or 
company,  he  or  it  can,  in  great  degree  if  not  en- 
tirely, exercise  a  monopolistic  influence  over  that 
industry. 

To  premit  monopolistic  magnitude  is  to  permit 
at  least  the  power  to  exercise  monopoly,  which  power 
cannot  exist  without  such  magnitude.  To  permit 
this  power  to  exercise  monopoly  to  exist,  means  that 
it  may  be  exercised  unless  curbed  by  the  Govern- 
ment or  by  society.  We  have  then  the  absurd 
condition  of  permitting  one  monstrosity  (a  monop- 
oly) to  exist  in  order  that  we  may  (in  fact  must) 
create  another  monstrosity  (a  political  commission) 
to  curb  and  control  its  probable  or  possible  extor- 
tions. Thus  two  wrongs  are  created  to  make  one 
right,  which  of  itself  is  a  monstrosity  in  thought. 

The  statement  that  "big  business "  must  grow  to 
monstrous,  hence  to  monopolistic  proportions,  is  not 
defensible.  As  well  might  it  be  said  that  the  rains 
must  deluge  the  earth  in  order  to  make  possible  the 
growth  of  vegetation. 


24  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

Bains  must  only  be  sufficient  to  produce  the  great- 
est facility  in  growth  and  cheapness  in  harvest. 
Superfluity  is  as  damaging  as  insufficiency.  The 
same  is  true  in  industry.  It  must  be  encouraged  (as 
the  rains  are  prayed  for)  to  that  magnitude  which 
assures  the  greatest  facility  in  operation  and  cheap- 
ness in  production,  but,  beyond  that,  like  the  rains, 
it  is  damaging.  The  "rule  of  reason"  must  apply 
here  as  in  all  human  affairs.  If  the  "millionth  per 
cent."  is  too  drastic  it  must  be  made  less  so,  and 
experience  alone  can  absolutely  demonstrate  this. 

No  industry  that  can  pay  5  per  cent,  on  60  to  100 
million  dollars  can  reasonably  complain  of  oppres- 
sive or  circumscriptive  conditions. 

If  any  industry  can  reasonably  so  complain,  then 
the  limit  can  be  enlarged,  but  not  till  then  should  it 
be  enlarged. 

THE  GOVEBNMENTAL  IDEA.— FETICHISM  ! 

The  Governmental  idea,  is,  to  a  great  extent  a  per- 
nicious superstition  or  Fetichism.  For  its  mainten- 
ance and  support  more  blood  and  treasure  have  been 
expended  than  mob  violence  has  ever  destroyed. 
Why  does  this  institution  exist?  What  is  it  good 
for  f  Why  will  human  beings  murder  each  other  for 
the  establishment  of  a  Dynasty!  Why  will  they 
yield  up  millions  of  labor  product  to  support  a 
monarch  on  a  throne  in  idleness  and  luxury?  Why 
do  men  take  pride  in  saying  "I  am  the  subject  of 
King  or  Emperor  Edward  or  William  or  Nicholas 
or  George?  Why  will  they  kill  or  imprison  a  fellow 
man  if  he  trails  in  the  dust  or  tramples  under  foot 
a  piece  of  bunting  called  a  flag!  Why  will  they  bow 
in  obsequious  genuflection  before  a  being  like  them- 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          25 

selves?  Why,  even  in  so-called  democracies,  does 
this  sentiment  exist  in  a  very  great  degree?  The 
answer  is  because  men  are  as  yet  unreasoning  be- 
ings in  a  very  great  degree.  There  is  need  for  an 
institution  to  protect  personal  and  property  rights 
against  viciousness  and  unrestraint  because  these 
characteristics  yet  exist  and  will  continue  to  exist 
until  human  beings  are  differently  constituted. 
There  is  also  a  need  for  an  institution  to  do  things 
that  must  be  done,  which,  in  their  nature,  offer  no 
reward  for  private  or  individual  activity  or  per- 
formance. This  institution  must  be  supported  by 
taxation  and  it  must  possess  power  to  inforce  its 
prerogatives  if  necessary.  The  unwisdom  that  is 
associated  with  it  is  its  exaltation  or  deification.  If 
it  was  considered  a  "Servicemen}"  the  idea  of  the 
Divine  right  of  kings,  and  the  useless  expansion  of 
its  duties  and  responsibilities,  as  in  the  idea  of 
Socialism  would  cease.  The  socialist  opposes  mon- 
archy, yet  salvery  to  a  socialistic  boss  would  doubt- 
less be  far  more  oppressive  and  galling  than  sub- 
jectship  to  a  king.  It  is  better  and  wiser  to  acknowl- 
edge the  need  for  government  or  servicement  lim- 
ited to  its  proper  sphere,  and  grant  to  it  absolute 
power  within  that  sphere,  leaving  freedom  to  the  in- 
dividual in  all  things  else  than  to  recognize  sub- 
ject ship  to  monarchy  or  slavery  to  socialism,  both 
of  which  are  in  conflict  with  the  natural  rights  of 
men.  Government  of  any  kind  signifies  restraint, 
which  is  abhorent  to  free  men,  but  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent men  must  be  restrained  by  what  we  call  law 
until  they  sufficient  restrain  themselves,  when  law 
will  become  useless.  Socialism  implies  not  only  re- 
straint but  circumscription.  Circumscription  im- 
plies a  diminution  of  incentive  and  this  implies  cur- 


26  MILLIONISM  'VS.  SOCIALISM 

tailment  of  producton  which  assures  retrogression. 
All  steps  toward  Governmentalization,  either  in 
ownership  or  controllership,  are  steps  toward  so- 
cialization. 


THE  GOVEENMENT  AND  THE  OPPOSITION. 

It  is  often  believed  and  asserted  by  statesmen  and 
savants  that  a  "VIGOROUS  OPPOSITION"  is  the 
most  wholesome  condition  for  any  governing  politi- 
cal party.  This  statement  implies  either  that  the 
"  Government "  (the  party  in  power)  is  corrupt  and 
should  be  held  in  check,  or  that  its  policies  are  un- 
statesmanlike  or  vicious  and  should  not  be  adopted 
at  all,  or,  if  adopted,  only  after  the  most  vigorous 
opposition.  Under  existing  political  conditions  a 
strong  opposition  is  no  doubt  better  than  the  un- 
checked reign  of  any  dominant  party.  Since  we  must 
deal  with  things  as  they  are  and  not  with  them  as 
they  should  be,  we  must  rely  on  opposition  to  temper 
the  recklessness  and  to  check  the  rapacity  of  all  par- 
ties long  in  control  of  public  affairs.  But  why  this 
need  for  opposition  at  all  ?  In  a  Board  of  Directors 
of  a  great  commercial  organization  there  is  not  con- 
stantly an  organized  opposition  to  the  management 
of  the  business.  Why  not  ?'  Because  business  meth- 
ods are  established  and  crystalized  into  some  defi- 
nite and  coherent  form  or  system.  Political  affairs 
or  methods  should  be  likewise  so,  but  they  are  not. 
Why  are  they  not  1  Because  the  science  of  govern- 
ment is  not  yet  as  well  known  as  is  the  science  of 
business.  The  former  is  yet  in  a  more  crude  and 
embryonic  state,  and  is,  in  most  countries,  partici- 
pated in  or  controlled  by  hereditary  rulers  or  by  in- 
experienced men  chosen  by  irresponsible  and  incom- 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          27 

petent  voters.  In  government  as  in  all  other  human 
activities  there  can  be  but  one  course,  plan  or  policy 
that  is  right.  Others,  therefore,  must  be  wrong.  The 
dominant  party  is  as  likely  to  be  wrong  as  the  oppo- 
sition, hence  BOTH  are  usually  wrong. 

Opposition  that  is  wrong  to  a  dominant  policy 
that  is  right  is  an  injury,  hence  if  our  political 
methods  were  as  near  right  as  our  business  meth- 
ods (and  they  should  be  equally  so)  a  vigorous  op- 
posing party  would  be  an  absurdity,  hence  not  a  con- 
dition to  be  desired.  It  is  the  very  fact  that  political 
methods  and  affairs  are  in  such  a  crude  and  embry- 
onic state  as  to  need  "  vigorous  opposition "  that 
makes  more  obvious  than  ever  the  necessity  for  cur- 
tailing governmental  functions  to  within  their  small- 
est possible  sphere.  Why  delegate  to  an  institution 
that  is  so  crude,  incompetent  or  corrupt  as  to  re- 
quire almost  constant  opposition,  any  duty  or  power 
whatsoever  that  can  be  performed  or  exercised  by 
business  institutions  which  do  not  need  continuous 
organized  opposition  constantly  opposing  their 
policies. 

If  the  only  real  need  of  the  opposition  is  to  get 
the  plums  of  patronage,  as  seems  often  to  be  the 
case,  then  yet  greater  is  the  need  for  curtailing  gov- 
ernmental functions  to  within  their  smallest  possible 
sphere.  There  would  be  little  need  for  organized 
opposition  if  political  affairs  were  conducted  as  sys- 
tematically as  business  affairs  are  conducted. 

PATRIOTISM. 

"My  country  may  she  always  be  right,  but  right 
or  wrong,  my  country, "  is  a  sentiment  to  which 
ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred  men  will  subscribe 


28  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

and  the  one  who  will  not  subscribe  to  it  is  liable 
to  be  denounced  both  as  a  traitor  and  a  fool.  It  is 
well  to  consider  this  a  little:  The  words  "my 
country "  are  presumed  to  apply  to  its  institutions 
and  not  to  its  climate  topography  or  soil.  These  in- 
stitutions may  or  may  not  be  right — in  fact  there 
is  no  country  upon  the  face  of  the  earth  wherein 
they  are  not  radically  wrong,  at  the  present  time 
at  least.  Why  support  a  wrong  thing  or  institution? 
What  does  any  individual  want  in  a  country  where 
the  climate  and  topographical  conditions  suit  him, 
except  the  best  and  safest  guarantee  of  his  right 
to  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness !  Should 
he  then  support  institutions  where  this  safest  guar- 
antee is  not  vouchsafed,  other  things  equal  ?  If  not 
then  it  is  possible  for  unlimited  patriotism  to  be- 
come a  mockery  and  a  sham.  "My  Country "  may 
mean  a  nation,  a  state,  a  county  or  a  city.  In  ancient 
times  the  city  constituted  practically  an  empire.  To- 
day patriotism  applies  almost  wholly  to  the  nation 
and  in  support  of  it  millions  upon  millions  have 
been  and  now  are  sacrificed  and  squandered.  For 
it  vast  armies  and  navies  are  maintained  at  great 
cost.  Forts  and  arsenals  are  being  constructed  and 
garrisoned — in  fact,  more  of  the  valuable  labor  pro- 
duct of  the  world  has  been  and  is  expended  subserv- 
iently to  the  patriotic  sentiment  than  for  all  the 
scientific  and  eleemosynary  institutions  in  the  world 
combined.  If  by  reason  of  patriotism  these  atrocious 
institutions  are  perpetuated,  then,  if  it  were  aban- 
doned, they  would  fall.  The  whole  world  is  every 
man's  country.  Men  were  evolved  from  the  EAETH 

not  from  part  of  it,  but  from  all  of  it.    The  land 

which  men  occupy  would  be  useless  without  the  sea 
which  they  cannot  occupy  and  thus  an  interdepen- 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCEACY  29 

dence  exists  that  causes  each  to  be  interested  in  the 
conditions  of  all.  If  by  fiat  or  force  any  one  nation 
could  monopolize  the  oceans  and  control  the  rain, 
the  lands  of  all  other  nations  would  be  worthless. 
This  mutual  interdependence  so  manifest  in  biology 
is  intensified  in  sociology.  NO  great  change  can 
occur  in  society  anywhere  unless  its  effect  is  noticed 
everywhere.  But,  there  are  very  few  people  to-day 
who  see  anything  but  the  highest  exemplification  of 
manhood  and  intelligence  in  national  patriotism,  yet 
to  it  is  attributable  much  of  the  distress  that  now 
curses  the  earth. 

STATE  GOVEENMENTS  VS.  SOCIAL 
PEOGEESS. 

In  America  we  are  afflicted  with  "STATEEIO- 
TISM"  as  well  as  with  PATEIOTISM.  Those  who 
believe  that  the  United  States  of  America  are  a 
"confederation  of  sovereign  stars  than  which  none 
more  glorious  are  shown  in  the  galaxy  of  nations " 
will  not,  at  least  for  some  time  in  the  future,  even  inci- 
dentally consider  the  suggestion  that  STATE  GOV- 
EENMENTS be  curtailed  much  less  abolished. 
Conditions  change,  and  men  must  change  with  them. 
The  time  will  come  when  state  governments  will  be 
transformed  into  something  akin  to  National  Ju- 
dicial Districts.  Inter-communication,  Inter-trans- 
portation and  commercial  inter-change  will  render 
some  such  alteration  necessary. 

At  the  time  of  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution, 
which  is  archaic  in  many  particulars,  inter-relation- 
ships of  all  kinds  were  meager  and  difficult.  Uni- 
formity of  law  and  process  was  not  then  as  neces- 
say  as  it  now  is.  In  those  days  there  was  some 


30  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

reason  why  the  state  of  Massachusetts  or  Ehode 
Island  might  require  some  difference  in  fundamen- 
tal law  from  the  state  of  South  Carolina  or  Georgia. 
Neither  their  people  nor  their  products  came  into  al- 
most daily  contact.  Aside  from  the  regulation  of 
the  race  question,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  any- 
thing that  any  government  should  do,  to-day,  that 
would  not  as  well  apply  to  one  as  to  the  other.  As 
the  race  question  is  regulated  at  present  in  the 
South,  so  it  might  be  in  all  the  states.  The  ques- 
tion, of  course,  is  would  it  be  so  regulated?  If  the 
principle  of  EQUITABLE  EELATIVITY  pre- 
vailed throughout  the  entire  Nation,  there  would  be 
but  little  need  of  any  other  regulation  regarding 
race  questions  of  personal  differences. 

The  state  is  neither  sufficiently  National  or  suffi- 
ciently local  to  meet  the  requirements  of  to-day. 
Enactments  of  state  Legislatures  are  very  fre- 
quently adverse  to  the  requirements  of  cities  within 
their  own  domain,  which  now  contain  a  vastly 
greater  percentage  of  the  wealth  and  population 
than  they  did  when  the  Constitution  was  adopted. 
By  increasing  the  power  of  cities  in  those  respects 
wherein  the  state  is  now  officious  and  unable  ade- 
quately to  control,  and  acknowledging  to  the  Nation 
unquestioned  suzerainty  in  those  respects  wherein 
the  state  is  now  acknowledged  to  be  palpably  defi- 
cient, would  not  cause  centralization,  but  simply  a 
better  diversification  which  would  tend  toward 
greater  convenience  in  administrative  function 
which  would  greatly  facilitate  human  activities,  and 
diminish  cumbersomeness  of  process.  We  have  too 
much  governmental  machinery.  State  pride  should 
not  thwart  social  progress.  State  autonomy  divided 
between  the  City  and  Nation  would  increase  both 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          31 

localization  and  nationalization.  Both  should  be  in- 
creased and  the  state  decreased  till  it  is  finally  ob- 
literated. Details  are  impossible  here;  but  when 
there  comes  the  will  there  will  come  the  waif. 

THE  EEEONEOUS  CONCEPTION  OF 
UNIVERSAL  SUFFEAGE. 

It  is  the  current  belief  that  to  deprive  the  masses 
of  equal  suffrage  would  be  a  wrong  almost  as  griev- 
ous as  to  deprive  them  of  life.  It  is  probably  no 
exaggeration  to  state  that  the  only  satisfaction  de- 
rived by  perhaps  half  the  votes  in  any  large  city 
for  the  franchise  privilege,  is  the  receipt  of  the 
small  recompense  either  in  money  or  stimulating 
beverages  for  which  their  votes  are  saleable.  The 
receipt  of  money  is  corrupting  to  their  morals  and 
cheap  spiritus  fermenti  is  usually  injurious  to  their 
constitutions ;  hence,  if  the  only  items  of  satisfaction 
are  injurious,  the  privilege  of  exercising  the  fran- 
chise cannot  be  beneficial.  To  cherish  chagrin,  mor- 
tification, or  a  spirit  of  revenge  for  the  deprivation 
of  a  thing  implies  the  possession  of  ability  for  the 
appreciation  of  that  thing.  The  slaves  of  the  South- 
ern States  did  not  clamor  for  freedom  nor  for  fran- 
chise with  half  the  unanimity  and  zeal  that  was 
manifested  by  their  northern  sympathizers — why? 
Because  most  of  them  could  not  appreciate  it.  Oft- 
times  sympathy  is  misplaced  or  is  more  intense  than 
it  should  be.  It  is  doubtless  true  that  the  writhings 
and  contortions  of  a  dying  man  are  often  less  excru- 
ciating to  him  than  they  appear  to  be  to  his  sympa- 
thetic bystanders.  In  fact,  as  stated  by  the  immor- 
tal bard,  even,  "the  sense  of  death  itself  may  be 
most  in  apprehension  and  the  poor  beetle  that  we 


32  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

tread  upon  in  corporal  sufferance  may  find  a  pang 
as  great  as  when  a  giant  dies,"  because  in  the  ap- 
proach of  dissolution,  the  sensibilities  are  numbed 
and  even  consciousness  itself  is  ofttimes  obliterated. 
The  same  is  in  great  measure  true  regarding  depri- 
vation, pain,  agony,  and  many  of  the  ills  and  woes 
that  flesh  is  heir  to,  that  is,  they  do  not  annoy  the 
unfortunate  victim  as  much  as  his  sympathizers 
think  they  do.  The  professional  politicians  or  bosses 
are  the  men  who  would  protest  against  equitable 
suffrage  and  who  would  "rail  out  like  the  thunder 
when  the  clouds  in  autumn  crack" — why?  Not  be- 
cause of  any  genuine  sympathy  for  the  ignorant 
voter  who  would  scarcely  know  that  a  change  was 
contemplated,  but  because,  by  a  change,  their  own 
occupation  would  be  gone.  More  good  would  result 
to  the  masses  by  the  better  conditions  that  qualified, 
or,  rather  equitable  suffrage  would  establish  than 
many  times  the  paltry  consideration  that  is  paid  for 
their  votes. 

Eeformers  who  think  that  their  only  protection 
against  the  encroachments  of  capital  lies  in  univer- 
sal suffrage,  fail  to  understand  that  many  of  the 
millions  now  owned  by  the  rich  are  directly  conse- 
quent upon  universal  suffrage  and  their  power  to 
purchase  the  boss  who  controls  that  suffrage. 

ACTUAL  DEMOCRATIC  EULE  AN 
IRIDESCENT  DREAM. 

As  reasonably  might  it  be  asserted  that  weather 
vanes  control  the  courses  of  the  winds,  or  that  drift- 
ing logs  produce  the  movements  of  the  tides,  as  that 
genuine  Democratic  Republicanism  ever  did,  or,  as 
men  are  now  constituted,  that  it  ever  will  actually 
rule  any  municipality  or  state. 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          33 

Referring  to  ancient  so  called  democracies  we 
find  that  they  were  not  genuine  democracies  at  all. 
Of  the  palmy  days  of  Athens  it  is  said  that  the  cul- 
ture of  her  citizens  was  much  superior  to  that  of 
the  average  English,  German  or  Latin  speaking  man 
or  woman  of  to-day.  It  is  also  claimed  that  this 
culture  was  largely  if  not  wholly  attributable,  not 
to  ethnological,  meteorological  or  topographical  con- 
ditions, but  to  sociological  conditions — to  her  Demo- 
cracy. Excellent  it  undoubtedly  was;  attributable 
to  social  conditions  it  might,  to  a  great  extent,  have 
been ;  but  those  social  conditions  were  not  truly  dem- 
ocratic. 

The  Athenian  citizens  of  that  day  constituted  an 
Athenian  aristocracy,  but  the  Greek  Slave  hewed  the 
wood  and  carried  the  water — in  fact,  performed 
most  all  of  the  necessary  labor.  Lands  and  mines 
were  largely  owned  by  the  public,  and,  by  the  labor 
of  slaves,  who  had  practically  no  political  recogni- 
tion or  rights,  crude  media,  necessary  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  state,  was  converted  into  utilizable  forms. 
To  this  the  captives  brought  home  to  Greece  (and 
afterwards  to  Rome)  " whose  ransoms  did  the  gen- 
eral coffers  fill,"  added  a  very  considerable  sum. 
The  city,  thus  supported,  devoted,  almost  gratui- 
tously, much  of  its  revenue  toward  the  advance 
ment  of  art,  literature,  sculpture,  the  Drama  and 
the  like.  The  Greek  citizen,  famous  in  history,  often 
had  little  or  no  concern  about  the  ' l  needful ' '  where- 
withal to  support  the  requirements  of  life,  because 
the  Greek  slave  produced  it  for  the  state  and  the 
state  practically  supported  its  men  of  letters,  art 
and  philosophy.  At  times,  even  bankers  were  slaves 
and  not  socially  recognized  by  citizens  of  genius  and 
culture.  Was  such  a  social  organization  a  true  dem- 


34  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

ocracy?  Democratic  enough,  perhaps,  within  the 
ranks  of  the  citizen  lords,  but  far  from  being  such 
among  the  whole  people  including  the  wealth-pro- 
ducing slaves. 

Even  among  the  fudal  Barons  democracy  doubt- 
less existed  among  the  truly  select;  but,  not  only  the 
productions  but  the  lives  of  the  slaves  were  subject 
to  the  merciless  caprice  of  the  lords  of  creation. 

In  the  slave  holding  states  of  the  American  Re- 
public, democracy  existed  among  the  masters  with 
their  peers.  Once  properly  introduced,  even  to  a 
stranger  their  house  was  his  castle  and  their  slaves 
were  his  servants.  It  cannot  be  shown  however, 
that  Dixie  ever  was  truly  democratic.  In  those  days, 
and  as  the  result  of  those  conditions,  Dixie  pro- 
duced great  men.  The  so-called  democracy  that  pro- 
duced this  excellence,  which  for  many  years  prac- 
tically dominated  the  American  nation,  was  much 
the  same  as  that  of  Ancient  Athens,  i.  e.,  No  democ- 
racy at  all.  As  in  Athens  so  in  the  slave  states  of 
America,  that  social  system  could  not  endure. 
Neither  were  democratic,  and,  until  the  masses  are 
more  capable  than  they  now  are,  actual  democracy 
is  an  absurdity.  Men  of  brains,  as  in  Athens  and  in 
the  South,  must  rule  as  an  ancient  aristocracy,  or 
the  business  politicians  must  rule  as  a  boss  oligar- 
chy, because  the  masses  (Democracy)  are  not  com- 
petent to  wield  their  own  weapons. 

RELATIVITY  VS.  EQUALITY. 

"Equality  is  good  only  among  EQUALS, "  wrote 
Aristotle.  All  bodies  in  the  Cosmos  seek  equilibrium 
on  bases  of  Relativity,  which,  in  that  domain  of  na- 
ture, depends  wholly  on  Mass  and  Motion. 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          35 

Biology  and  Psychology  are  closely  associated— 
the  latter  manifesting  itself  in  highly  organized 
forms  only.  Without  entering  into  an  inquiry  or 
discussion  as  to  the  nature  of  either,  it  is  safe  to 
state  that  the  same  fundamental  law  underlies  both 
that  is  found  to  exist  in  Cosmology.  If  this  is  true 
as  to  these  three  divisions  of  the  Universe,  it  is  most 
likely  to  be  true  in  the  fourth,  namely,  in  Sociology. 
"Equality,  therefore,  in  Sociology,  is  good  only 
among  EQUALS.  It  follows  that  whenever  in  hu- 
man society  we  find  INEQUALITY,  the  application 
of  the  principle  of  EQUALITY  is  erroneous  and  ab- 
normal. As  we  find  inequality  everywhere,  equality 
is  normal  nowhere.  The  greatest  error  that  was 
made  by  our  revolutionary  sires  was  the  assertion  of 
the  principle  of  EQUALITY.  Effort  is  made  by 
all  admirers  of  the  great  work  of  those  men  to  recon- 
cile their  assertion  with  the  facts  as  they  exist,  but 
the  effect  is  more  in  the  nature  of  an  apology  than 
of  a  demonstration. 

People  are  EQUAL  or  they  are  not  equal — they 
cannot  be  both  at  the  same  time.  If  they  are  equal, 
then,  given  time,  their  accomplishments  and  posi- 
tions would  be  equal,  which  we  find  that  they  are 
not. 

If  their  accomplishments  and  positions  are  un- 
equal (as  we  find  them  to  be)  then  it  is  safe  to  state 
that  they  are  unequal. 

If  unequal,  the  only  basis  for  true  or  normal  rela- 
tionships between  them  is  a  EELATIVE  basis.  The 
assumption  of  equality  is  the  reason  why  so  many 
regulations  are  found  to  be  necessary  in  our  social 
organizations.  Of  course  "Relativity"  must  be  as 
"Equitable"  as  possible,  and  it  is  difficult  to  find  a 
basis  for  its  establishment.  EXCELLENCE  or 


36  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

FITNESS  is  the  true  basis,  and  it  is  the  claim  of 
Timocracy  that,  for  the  purposes  of  government,  the 
most  practical  basis  of  determining  excellence 
(though,  of  course,  discriminating  in  some  cases)  is 
ownership  and  usership  of  property. 

At  any  rate  this  IS  A  BASIS  that  would  work 
practical  justice,  and  any  basis  that  is  just  is  better 
than  no  basis  at  all. 

INDIVIDUALISM  VS.  SOCIALISM. 

Individuals  must  exist  and  be  preseved  (which 
means  that  their  offspring  must  be  preserved)  be- 
fore Society  can  exist  at  all.  It  follows,  therefore, 
that  the  preservation  and  perfection  of  society  must 
come  by  and  through  the  prior  preservation  and 
perfection  of  the  individual.  The  created  cannot 
come  before  the  Creator,  and  the  excellence  of  the 
whole  must  depend  upon  the  excellence  of  the  parts. 
Individualism  but  not  monopoly  is  the  shebbolith 
of  true  progress  and  true  reform. 

THE  PEOPLE  BE  DAMNED  OR  BLESSED 
-WHICH? 

When  a  certain  multi-millionaire  said,  "0,  the 
people  be  dam'd"  he  did  not,  in  all  probability,  in- 
tend to  consign  them  to  HELL,  but  only  to  state, 
that,  in  his  opinion,  they  really  do  not  know  what  is 
best  for  themselves.  If  the  people  are  not  capable 
of  properly  using  weapons  then  they  are  not  blessed 
by  an  opportunity  to  use,  be  those  weapons  BAL- 
LOTS or  BROADSWORDS.  On  the  contrary,  in- 
capacity to  properly  use  will  cause  damage  to  them- 
selves and  consequently  harm  to  the  social  organiza- 
tion of  which  they  are  a  part. 


TIMOCBACY   VS.  DEMOCEACY          37 

Most  public  men  seek  popularity  by  lauding  the 
people.  Such  expressions  as  "government  of,  by 
and  for  the  people "  have  been  universally  praised, 
and  have  caused  their  supposed  author  to  be  almost 
worshiped.  It  is  by  no  means  certain  that  a  gov- 
ernment OF,  and  BY  the  people  is  or  ever  will  be  a 
government  that  is  best  FOB  the  people.  No  sin- 
cere man  can  object  to  a  government  FOE  the 
people,  because  if  not  FOE  the  people  it  must  be 
FOE  Kings,  Princes,  Presidents  and  Pensioners. 
Surely  no  one  desires  a  government  solely  for  these, 
except  they  themselves.  However,  by  reason  of  the 
incompetency  of  the  people,  governments  are  at  this 
day,  largely  FOE  these  indiviluals  only,  and  not 
FOE  the  people  at  all.  If  it  is  not  by  reason  of  the 
incompetency  of  the  people,  why  is  one-third  of  their 
labor  product  permitted  to  be  taken  to  support  these 
terrestrial  GODS  in  regal  splendor  instead  of  being 
used  to  secure  and  maintain  homes,  food  and  com- 
forts for  themselves?  Taxes  must  be  paid  to  sup- 
port kings  before  bread  can  be  had  to  prevent  star- 
vation. 

A  government  "OF  and  BY"  the  people  is  not 
this  day  a  government  FOE  the  people,  nor  will  it 
ever  be  until  the  people  are  wiser.  He,  therefore, 
who  opposes  government  OF  and  BY  the  people 
may  be  doing  more  to  secure  a  true  government  for 
the  people  than  he  is  doing  who  favors  it. 

The  people  will  be,  at  least  in  a  measure,  dam'd 
by  any  government  OF  and  BY  themselves  till  they 
can  use  their  weapons  more  wisely. 

As  long  as  the  people  can  be  used  by  men  of  su- 
perior intelligence  to  their  own,  their  government 
OF  and  BY  themselves  will  not  be  FOE  themselves 
but  FOE  their  BOSSES  and  FOE  the  minions  whom 


MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

they  select  to  do  their  bidding  instead  of  serving 
the  interests  of  the  people.  A  child  would  be  bene- 
fited by  taking  a  razor  out  of  its  hands,  and  likewise 
the  people  might  be  benefited  by  taking  the  ballot 
out  of  their  hands. 

Since,  however,  it  cannot  be  practically  deter- 
mined who  can  best  use  the  ballot,  it  is  proposed 
that  a  relative  use  of  it  is  better  than  an  EQUAL 
use  or  exercise  of  it. 

The  better  elements  of  society  to-day  would  not 
persecute  and  abuse  their  inferiors  as  they  did  in 
the  days  of  fudalism,  but  would  try  to  assist  and 
uplift  them. 

The  fetters,  manacles,  and  shackels  of  serfdom 
have  been  removed  not  by  the  serfs  themselves,  but 
by  their  superiors  and  because  these  superiors  have 
themselves  been  uplifted.  In  like  manner  the  social 
bonds  that  now  oppress  the  people  would  be  loos- 
ened if  their  superiors  were  to  exercise  their  proper 
ratio  in  the  use  of  the  ballot.  The  people  in  ages 
gone  by  were  dam'd  by  their  lords  and  masters,  but 
to-day  they  are  dam'd  almost  entirely  by  them- 
selves. 

THE  POWEE  OF  THE  PEESS. 

It  is  not  asserted  by  Timocracy  that  a  united 
press  could  "dim  the  noontide  Sun  or  call  forth 
the  mutinous  and  tempestuous  winds  "  but  it  is  prob- 
able that  it  could  "between  the  green  sea  and  the 
azured  vault  set  roaring  war,  or  smiling  peace  if  war 
was  roaring."  The  PEESS  not  only  MOULDS 
public  opinion,  but  CEEATES  it.  There  is  scarcely 
a  public  man  or  measure  about  whom  or  which  the 
public  does  not  get  its  impression  or  form  its  opin- 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          39 

ion  upon  what  the  press  says,  or  by  what  some  influ- 
ential friend,  who  no  doubt  got  his  impressions  from 
the  press,  has  said  or  thought  concerning  any  man 
or  measure.  When  the  press  is  divided,  as  it  usually 
is,  people  are  likewise  divided.  A  UNITED  PEESS 
could  establish  Timocracy  or  any  other  system  in  a 
comparatively  short  time.  There  are  certain  funda- 
mental things  on  which  the  press  is  united,  and  cer- 
tain other  fundamental  things  on  which  it  should  be 
united.  The  opinion  of  the  press  is  not  divided  as 
to  the  truth  of  the  Heliocentric  System,  nor  as  to  the 
ellipticity  of  celestial  orbits,  nor  as  to  gravity,  chem- 
ical affinity,  nor  as  to  the  fundamental  scientific  facts 
in  Biology  or  Psychology.  The  fact  that  equilibrium 
in  each  of  these  domains  of  nature  is  uniformly 
reached  on  bases  of  Eelativity  is  not  dissented  from 
by  any  enlightened  contributor  to  the  press.  That 
Equilibrium  in  Sociology  must  likewise  exist  or  be 
reached  on  bases  of  i  '  Eelativity "  is  equally  obvious, 
but  it  is  not  as  yet  as  universally  admitted:  Until 
in  Sociology  relativity  is  acknowledged  and  estab- 
lished, equilibrium  will  not  exist  permanently  in  so- 
ciety. Eelativity  cannot  be  established  with  abso- 
lute perfection  by  any  ONE  plan  or  system,  but  it 
can  be  APPEOACHED  and  an  approach  is  better 
than  no  plan  at  all. 

If  a  UNITED  PEESS  should  assert  that  relativ- 
ity should  be  adopted  as  to  SUFFEAGE  and  that 
all  monopoly  should  be  abolished  and,  that,  until 
some  better  plan  is  suggested,  it  should  be  ap- 
proached by  the  Timocratic  plan  of  equitable  suff- 
rage, based  on  the  ratio  of  residential  rent  and  tax, 
and  by  the  Timocratic  scale  of  CUMULATIVE  tax- 
ation for  the  abolition  of  monopoly,  it  would  not  be 
long  before  that  basis  would  be  adopted,  and,  if 


40  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

adopted,  a  very  large  per  centum  of  the  corruption, 
fraud,  venality,  dishonesty,  poverty  and  misery  with 
which  society  is  now  cursed,  would  be  ended. 

If  the  press  would  simply  admit  the  axiomatic 
aphorism  that  Eelativity  among  unequal  things  is 
just,  and  that  equality  among  relative,  or  unequal 
things  is  unjust,  that  truth  would  soon  be  admitted. 
There  is  vast  room  for  differences  of  opinion  as  to 
what  should  be  done,  or  as  to  what  political  policy 
should  be  pursued  after  the  plan  or  basis  of  doing 
it  is  relatively  established. 

If  the  Timocratic  plan  is  not  a  good  one,  the 
UNITED  PEESS  should  suggest  a  better  one. 


CHAPTER  I. 

GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  TIMOCRACY. 

Millionism  Better  Than  Socialism:  Worth  And 
Wealth  Should  Wield  The  World :  Aristocracy  And 
Plutocracy:  Inadequacy  Of  Democracy:  Boss  Oli- 
garchy: Governments  Are  Business  Corporations: 
Renter  Is  The  Tax  Payer :  Error  Of  Plutocracy  As 
To  Voting:  Error  Of  Democracy  As  To  Voting: 
Equitable  Relativity:  World-Wide  Nationalism: 
Definition  Of  Timocracy:  Proposed  Principles: 
The  Millionth  Per  Cent.  Anti-Monopoly  Tax:  Busi- 
ness Of  Life:  Collectiveism  VS.  Individualism: 
Forms  Of  Collectiveism :  Fetichism,  Geocracy  And 
Semi-Socialism :  Individualism :  Wage  Slaves  And 
Chattle  Slaves:  No  Uninterrupted  Access  To  Na- 
tural Opportunity :  Should  Be  Equitable  Access  To 
Natural  Opportunity:  Favoritism  Under  Public 
Ownership : 

GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  TIMOCRACY. 

Millionism  is  better  than  Socialism — Accumula- 
tion is  better  than  dissipation.  Worth  and  Wealth 
should  wield  the  world.  The  words  Aristocratic  and 
Plutocratic  meaning  substantially  and  respectively, 
"the  rule  of  the  best  and  the  rule  of  wealth "  are 
usually  regarded  with  opprobrium.  The  word  Dem- 
ocratic, signifying  the  rule  of  the  masses  or  univer- 

41 


42  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

sal  suffrage,  is  usually  regarded  with  praise.  The 
United  States  of  America  ostensibly  constitute  not 
only  a  republic  but  a  Democratic  Republic.  When 
the  Government  was  founded  these  States  numbered 
only  thirteen ;  their  population  was  only  about  three 
millions ;  their  territorial  area  was  only  about  one- 
tenth  what  is  now  is;  their  cities  were  small  and 
their  population  conservative;  their  aggregated 
wealth  was  but  little  more  than  that  which  a  few 
individuals  now  own,  and  they  were  scarcely  recog- 
nized as  a  nation  of  the  earth.  In  those  days  and 
under  those  conditions  the  putative  Democratic  Ee- 
public  was  organized,  though,  even  then,  not  without 
vigorous  opposition  upon  the  part  of  some  of  the 
wisest  statesmen  of  that  day.  We  were  then  prac- 
tically a  community  of  agriculturists.  We  are  to- 
day a  great  industrial  nation  competing  for  supre- 
macy in  the  commercial  world.  Such  a  revolution 
in  internal  and  external  conditions  calls  for  some 
change  in  our  governmental  form.  With  our  world- 
wide commercial  policy  there  must  also  go  a  world- 
wide governmental  policy.  The  greatest  industrial 
nation  in  the  world  needs  the  best  business  talent 
and  wisest  statesmanship  at  the  head  of  its  affairs. 
The  miscellaneous  character  of  our  population 
brought  about  by  free  immigration  renders  univer- 
sal suffrage  dangerous  to  a  stable  business  and  gov- 
ernmental policy.  Is  a  Democratic  Eepublic  suit- 
able to  cope  with  and  handle  the  complicated  ques- 
tions resulting  from  these  world-wide  commercial 
and  governmental  conditions,  both  of  which  must 
expand?  Is  a  Democratic  Eepublic  suitable  even 
for  the  proper  protection  of  the  personal  and  pro- 
perty rights  of  100,000,000  people  of  various  na- 
tionalities widely  diversified  and  miscellaneously 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          43 

grouped?  Ere  long  there  must  come  in  America  a 
new  arrangement  of  political  parties  and  policies. 
Would  it  not  be  wiser  to  change  the  putative  Dem- 
ocratic Republic  into  a  Republic  based  on  worth 
and  responsibility  rather  than  to  continue  a  Govern- 
ment cursed  by  the  incapacity  and  irresponsibility 
of  universal  suffrage,  or  by  Socialism  in  any  of  its 
forms  f 

The  Republic  of  Democracy,  practically  begun 
over  one  century  ago  with  the  inauguration  of 
Thomas  Jefferson  as  President,  has,  after  a  test  of 
one  hundred  years,  resulted,  not  in  Democratic  Gov- 
ernment, but  in  boss  oligarchism.  In  the  days  of 
Jefferson  it  was  probably  not  imagined  that  one 
man  in  most  of  the  large  centres  of  population  in 
America  could  ever  practically  name  Councilmen, 
Mayors,  Assemblymen,  and  Congressmen  or  that  a 
few  such  in  the  larger  States  could  even  partially 
control  the  election  of  Governors  and  even  of  Presi- 
dents. In  wresting  power  from  a  Monarch  it  is  not] 
wise  to  vest  it  in  a  mob,  nor  in  an  irresponsible  boss 
who  controls  that  mob.  Sociologically  speaking,  a 
Republic  of  Democracy  means  a  boss  oligarchy  or  a 
'  *  political  plutocracy. ' '  Either  bosses  distribute  the 
offices  or  rich  men  buy  them. 

This  state  of  affairs  is  a  necessary  and  unavoid- 
able result  of  a  so-called  democratic  system.  Ignor- 
ant and  incompetent  voters  must  have  a  leader  or 
boss  just  as  wards  and  children  must  have  a  guard- 
ian or  nurse.  When  one  boss  is  overthrown  another 
equally  corrupt  is  soon  installed.  The  statement 
ofttimes  made  that,  whenever  bossism  becomes  too 
arrogant  or  corrupt,  the  people  rise  in  their  majesty 
and  turn  the  rascals  out  is  not  wholly  true.  Such 
revolutions  occur  but  seldom  and  not  until  bossism 


44  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

becomes  practically  unendurable.  The  reign  of  re- 
form is  usually  brief;  control  soon  lapses  back  to 
the  original  boss  or  his  successor,  because  bossism 
is  the  normal,  natural  and  necessary  result  of  Dem- 
ocratic-Eepublicanism.  More  than  half  the  voters, 
especially  in  the  cities  of  America,  are  controlled 
by  bosses ;  and,  as  long  as  ignorance  and  irresponsi- 
bility mobilized  by  designing  politicians  can  wield 
even  the  balance  of  power,  bossism  must  continue. 
Men  of  sense  know  this  and  men  of  candor  admit  it. 
"A  government  actually  ruled  by  a  democracy  would 
be  like  a  household  ruled  by  its  nursery/'  said  one 
of  the  brainiest  statesmen  of  Europe.  A  govern- 
ment may  be  truly  a  republic  and  yet  may  not  be  a 
democratic  republic.  The  word  republic  means  a 
public  thing — Re-publica.  So  that  in  opposing  dem- 
ocratic republicanism,  universal  suffrage  and  boss- 
oligarchism,  a  citizen  is  not  opposing  a  republican 
form  of  government. 

BUSINESS  CORPORATIONS. 

A  municipality,  a  commonwealth  or  a  nation  is 
an  organization  created  to  perform  certain  duties 
which  citizens  in  their  private  capacities  cannot  so 
well  perform  or  cannot  perform  at  all.  Each  should 
be  considered  and  dealt  with  as  A  BUSINESS 
CORPORATION.  Its  resources  are,  not  the  pri- 
vate property  of  the  citizens ;  but  that  percentage  of 
it  only  that  is  yielded  up  in  taxation.  The  tax  re- 
ceipts, therefore,  are  the  stock  certificates  of  own- 
ership, and  on  these  and  not  on  the  total  ownership 
of  private  property  votes  should  be  apportioned.  It 
is  true  that  the  owner  primarily  pays  the  taxes,  but 
the  amounts  so  paid  are  added  to  the  rent  of  the 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCEACY          45 

property,  hence  the  owner  is  reimbursed  by  the  ten- 
ant or  user,  who,  in  turn,  is  often  reimbursed  by 
a  sub-tenant  or  sub-user,  so  that  the  tax  receipt 
voting  certificates  rightfully  belong  (except  as  to 
the  owner 's  privately  used  properties)  to  and  should 
be  exercised  by  the  said  tenant  or  user.  This  is 
the  justification  for  the  voting  system  proposed 
herein  as  will  be  more  fully  discussed  in  a  subse- 
quent chapter. 

The  fundamental  error  of  Plutocracy  is  that  it 
assumes  that  citizens  own  the  governmental  cor- 
poration in  the  same  ratio  as  they  own  private  prop- 
erty and  claims  recognition  and  voting  power  on 
that  basis,  which  is  not  right  nor  just,  because  all 
their  private  property  is  not  contributed  to  said 
corporation.  The  fundamental  error  of  Democracy 
is  that  it  assumes  that  all  men  equally  own  the  gov- 
ernmental corporation  (which  they  do  not  because 
they  have  not  equally  contributed  to  the  resources 
of  that  corporation)  hence  that  all  men  should 
equally  vote  which  is  likewise  not  right  nor  just. 
An  Aristocracy  holds  to  the  idea  that  only  the  best 
should  vote.  There  being  no  practical  method  of 
determining  who  are  "the  best,"  an  aristocracy  is 
not  a  practical  form  of  government  and  would  also 
be  an  unjust  form.  Timocracy  signifies  a  govern- 
ment in  which  votes  are  apportioned  on  the  basis 
of  a  "renting  or  rating  of  property,"  and  one  in 
which  honor,  prudence  and  justice  should  be  the 
ruling  principles.  Throughout  all  nature  inequality 
and  not  equality  is  universally  prevalent,  hence  in- 
equality and  not  equality  should  be  recognized  and 
provided  for  which  can  only  be  done  by  the  adoption 
of  the  principle  of  Equitable  Relativity.  This  there- 
fore and  not  equality  is  the  true  basis  for  all  institu- 


46  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

tions.  For  "Equality  is  good  only  among  equals, " 
said  Aristotle,  and  since  equals  do  not  exist,  equality 
should  not.  For  the  support  of  Municipal  and  State 
Corporations  the  largest  part  of  the  value  is  now 
collected  from  FIXED  property,  so  that  votes  ap- 
portioned on  the  tax  and  rental  basis  would  corre- 
spond substantially  to  the  true  ownership  of  these 
governments,  hence  Equitable  Eelativity  would  be 
guaranteed  and  the  ends  of  justice  subserved. 

In  National  Governments  supported  mainly  by  in- 
direct taxation  this  true  ownership  cannot  be  traced 
out  nor  rightfully  guaranteed  its  just  voting  status. 
The  time  may  come  when  the  prejudice  against  DI- 
EECT  taxation  and  the  erroneous  belief  that  it  is 
more  burdensome  than  INDIRECT  systems  will  be 
removed,  and  then  Equitable  Eelativity  can  be  es- 
tablished. 

If  ever  the  dream  of  WOELD  WIDE  NATION- 
ALIZATION is  realized,  it  must  be  on  some  basis  of 
Equitable  Eelativity.  If  said  dream  could  be  real- 
ized the  first  generation  that  succeeded  it  would  do 
more  toward  making  the  Earth  a  paradise  for  men 
rather  than  a  foot  stool  for  Monarchs  than  the  thou- 
sands of  generations  that  have  preceded  it.  Long 
residence  in  certain  comparatively  isolated  regions 
has  endeared  the  inhabitants  thereof  to  the  climate, 
the  soil  and  topographical  conditions.  From  this 
has  developed  the  sentiment  of  PATEIOTISM, 
which  does  more  to  retard  world  wide  progress  than 
all  other  influences  combined,  because  it  consumes  so 
large  a  part  of  the  productive  energy  of  the  people 
in  wars  and  in  preparation  for  wars,  and  in  the 
support  of  pensioners  who  have  won  or  tried  to  win 
the  " bauble  reputation  even  in  the  cannon's 
mouth. ' ' 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          47 

There  yet  lingers  in  the  minds  of  many  people 
the  idea  that  there  is  some  kind  of  a  "DIVINITY 
that  doth  hedge  a  KING." 

Naturally  Monarchs  and  their  immediate  retain- 
ers and  beneficiaries  encourage  and  foster  this  idea. 
Others  who  are  more  philosophical  acknowledge  its 
irrationality,  but  acquiesce  in  its  continuance  for 
the  reason  that  nothing  which  can  be  called  a  de- 
cided improvement  thereon  has  yet  been  proposed. 
The  DEMOCRACY  of  America  must  be  admitted 
to  be  .nothing  but  a  BOSS  OLIGARCHY  under  the 
practical  operation  of  which  corruption  is  as  great, 
if  not  greater  than  under  any  progressive  monarchi- 
cal system.  This  therefore  offers  little,  if  any, 
actual  improvement — certainly  not  enough  to  war- 
rant the  disestablishment  of  any  of  the  aforesaid 
PROGRESSIVE  Monarchies.  What  is  needed  to 
warrant  a  change  is  a  system  that  actually  will  be 
an  improvement.  Timocracy  is  suggested  as  an 
approach  toward  a  better  system  than  either  Dem- 
ocracy or  Monarchy.  In  writing  about  the  Timo- 
cracy of  Athens,  which  was  founded  by  Solon,  Thirl- 
wald,  Grote  and  Von  Ranke  state,  in  substance,  that 
"the  distinguishing  feature  was,  THE  SUBSTITU- 
TION OF  RATES  ON  PROPERTY  FOR  RIGHTS 
OF  BIRTH  AS  A  title  to  a  honors  and  offices  of 
state."  Since  the  polity  of  Ancient  Greece  is  not 
applicable  in  its  entirety  to  modern  America  details 
are  unnecessary.  The  name  is  chosen  to  designate 
those  principles  which  prefer  EQUITABLE  RELA- 
TIVITY to  INEQUITABLE  EQUALITY,  and 
PRIVATE  OWNERSHIP  to  any  form  of  MONO- 
POLY. 

It  is  submitted  that  DEMOCRACY  on  the  one 
hand,  which  means  a  BOSS  OLIGARCHY;  and 


48  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

MONOPOLY  on  the  other,  which  means  SOCIAL- 
ISM or  a  BUEEAUCEACY,  is  not  suitable  for  the 
future  of  the  American  EEPUBLIC,  necessarily  ex- 
pansive, both  politically  and  commercially. 

GENEEAL  PEINCIPLES. 

The  following  general  principles  subject,  of 
course,  to  such  modifications  as  time,  place  and  cir- 
cumstance may  require,  are  submitted  for  the  con- 
sideration of  those  who  really  believe  in  political 
reformation  on  lines  of  ANTI-MONOPOLY  and 
ANTI-BOSS  OLIGAECHY  which  latter  is  the  nec- 
essary outgrowth  of  generical  DEMOCEACY. 

There  are  many  citizens  in  all  countries  who  do 

thus  believe,  and,  had  they  the  courage  to  organize 

and  act,  great  good  would  result  to  society  at  large. 

1st.    That  "Capitalists  are  the  CUSTODIANS  of 

the  world's  wealth  and  that  their  accumulations 

should  be  encouraged,  but  not  MONOPOLIZED. 

2nd.    That  ALL  TAXATION  should,  as   soon  as 

possible,   be  DIEECT   and  be  collected  from 

EEAL  ESTATE  AND  OTHEE  FIXED  PEO- 

PEETY  AND  FEANCHISES  ONLY.   (It 

could  now  be  applied  for  State  and  Municipal 

purposes    and   not    appreciably   alter   existing 

methods.) 

That  in  order  to  extirpate  existing  and  to 
prevent  future  MONOPOLY,  the  following 
CUMULATIVE  EATES  be  imposed  in  addi- 
tion to  the  regular,  and  to  be  applied  NATION- 
ALLY. 

I.  On  PEIVATE  EESIDENCES,  PAEKS, 
PEESEEVES,  EESOETS  (all  property  not 
offered  for  commercial  use)  over  100,000  dol- 


TIMOCEACY    VS.  DEMOCRACY          49 

lars  in  value,  a  per  centum  on  the  assessed 
value  equal  to  the  ONE  MILLIONTH  of  said 
assessed  value.  (This  to  prevent  RESIDEN- 
TIAL MONOPOLY.)  Rents  capitalized  at  10 
per  cent. 

II.  To  prevent  MONOPOLY  OF  NATURAL 
OPPORTUNITY:   On  ALL   UNUSED   PRO- 
PERTY, such  as  LANDS,  MINES,  FORESTS, 
WATER   POWER   SITES,  VACANT   CITY 
LOTS,  IDLE  COMMERCIAL  PLANTS   and 
the  like,  over  $100,000  in  value,  the  same  rate 
as  on  the  foregoing;  but  said  rate  is  not  to  be 
imposed  on  these  properties  unless  an  offer  for 
development  and  use  that  a  COURT  deems  rea- 
sonable is  refused,  and  shall  cease  whenever 
such  offer  is  accepted. 

III.  To  prevent  the  MONOPOLY  OF  REAL 
ESTATE    IN    GENERAL:     On    all    REAL 
ESTATE  owned  by  ONE  INDIVIDUAL  OR 
BY  ONE  COMPANY  over  ONE  MILLION  IN 
VALUE,  a  per  centum  on  the  gross  MONTHLY 
RENTAL  thereof  equal  to  ONE  MILLIONTH 
of  the  aggregate  tax  valuation  of  said  aggre- 
gated property. 

IV.  To  PREVENT   THE   MONOPOLY   OF 
INDUSTRY:    On  ALL  BUSINESS  ENTER- 
PRISES with  a  gross  MONTHLY  output  or 
business  of  ONE  MILLION  or  over,  a  per  cen- 
tum on  said  output  or  business  equal  to  the 
ONE-MILLIONTH  thereof.     The  same  to  ap- 
ply to  all  enterprises  owned  by  a  single  individ- 
ual or  company. 

From  this  it  is  suggested  that  BANKS  and 
CREDIT  INSTITUTIONS  be  exempted  to  the 
extent  of  ONE  HALF. 


50  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

V.  To  PREVENT  THE  MONOPOLY  OF 
WEALTH  IN  GENERAL :  ON  ALL  INHER- 
ITANCES OF  ONE  MILLION  and  upward,  to 
be  paid  at  the  date  of  the  inheritance,  by  any 
single  individual,  a  per  centum  equal  to  the 
ONE  MILLIONTH  of  said  aggregate  INHER- 
ITANCE. 

The  "Millionth  Per  Cent.  Anti-Monopoly  Tax." 
These  rates  are  not  complicated  and  could  be 
easily  applied.  They  could  be  designated 
"THE  MILLIONTH  PER  CENT.  ANTI- 
MONOPOLY  TAX."  If  the  rates  should  prove 
so  drastic  as  to  reduce  per  capita  wealth  accum- 
ulation or  to  thwart  private  enterprise  it  is  pro- 
posed that  they  be  reduced,  as  MONOPOLY  is 
preferable  to  LOCAL,  NATIONAL  OR 
WORLD  WIDE  POVERTY.  Commercial  pro- 
perties carry  only  ONE  TENTH  the  ANTI- 
MONOPOLY  TAX  that  is  imposed  on  PRI- 
VATELY USED  OR  UNUSED  PROPERTY. 
If  people  really  desire  to  tax  WEALTH  (not 
poverty)  JUSTLY  BUT  NOT  INJURIOUSLY, 
the  above  is.  a  GOOD  plan. 

PROPOSED  PRINCIPLES  CONTINUED. 

3rd.  That  there  should  be  a  qualification  for  citizen- 
ship and  SUFFRAGE  based  on  proper  educa- 
tion and  on  ultimate  TAXATION  or  the  equiva- 
lent of  the  latter  as  represented  by  RESIDEN- 
TIAL RENT  AND  IN  PROPORTION  to  said 
TAXATION  and  RENT. 

4th.  That  the  qualified  popular  electors  or  voters 
should  elect  or  choose  only  the  lower  or  popular 
branch  of  all  legislative  assemblages;  that  the 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          51 

higher,  or  advisory  branch,  should  be  chosen  by 
and  from  the  members  of  the  lower;  and  that 
the  EXECUTIVE  should  be  chosen  by  and 
from  the  members  of  the  higher,  all  for  stated 
terms  and  fixed  tenures. 

That  all  JUDICIAL  OFFICIALS  should  be 
appointed  by  EXECUTIVES  and  confirmed  by 
LEGISLATURES,  and  serve  for  life  or  during 
good  behavior ;  and  that  in  case  of  death,  retire- 
ment or  removal,  the  SENIOR  in  service  in  a 
lower  court  should  be  promoted  to  the  higher, 
as  far  as  the  same  can  be  practicable  and  not 
prejudicial  to  the  service.  That  all  minor  offi- 
cials should  be  chosen  as  far  as  possible  by  com- 
petitive examination  and  those  not  so  chosen  to 
be  appointed,  and,  if  necessary,  confirmed. 

5th.  That  nothing  should  be  done  by  any  GOVERN- 
MENTAL power  which,  in  its  nature,  will  yield 
a  revenue;  that  governments  should  be  sup- 
ported by  TAXATION  and  do  nothing  that  pri- 
vate corporations  or  individuals  can  do. 

6th.  That  the  STANDARD  OF  VALUE  for  the 
present  should  be  GOLD  COIN  only,  and  the 
circulating  medium  should  be  paper  bills  re- 
deemable in  GOLD  COIN,  and  be  issued  by  the 
GOVERNMENT  under  proper  regulations. 

7th.  That  universal  PEACE  should  be  the  policy 
of  all  nations  and  that  universal  and  unlimited 
ARBITRATION  should  be  adopted  by  all  with 
respect  to  all  differences. 

In  essentials,  CONSTANCY;  in  non-essen- 
tials, CONCILIATION  and  in  all  things,  REA- 
SON is  the  position  for  all  citizens  to  assume. 

The  essential  features  of  the  above  proposi- 
tions are  EQUITABLE  RELATIVITY,  or 


52  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

opposition  to  UNIVEESAL  SUFFRAGE,  and 
ANTI-MONOPOLY  in  the  ownership  of  wealth. 
That  individuals  should  exercise  power,  i.  e., 
vote,  in  the  ratio  of  their  ownership  in  govern- 
mental corporations,  and  said  ownership  is 
measured  by  their  contribution  thereto,  and  the 
USER,  not  the  OWNER,  is  the  real  and  true 
contributor. 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  LIFE. 

The  business  of  life  is  the  transformation  of 
crude  media  into  utilizable  forms,  and  the  transpor- 
tation of  those  forms  to  places  of  utilization.  Com- 
prehensively considered  this  definition  of  life 's  busi- 
ness covers  all  the  vocations  that  men  pursue.  In 
other  words  the  business  of  life  is  not  to  CREATE, 
BUT  TO  MOVE  THINGS. 

Molecules  of  matter  are  MOVED  into  masses,  and 
masses  are  MOVED  into  useful  forms,  and  these 
forms  are  MOVED  to  where  they  are  needed  for 
the  use  and  benefit  of  the  people. 

If  therefore,  the  business  of  life  is  the  transfor- 
mation of  crude  material  into  utilizable  forms,  then 
it  is  an  unavoidable  conclusion  that  the  things  thus 
transformed  are  desired,  and,  if  desired,  the  greater 
they  are  in  quantity  and  the  more  excellent  they  are 
in  quality,  the  better  is  human  desire  subserved  or 
gratified. 

The  question  first  arises,  how  can  this  desidera- 
tum be  best  accomplished,  and,  second,  how  can  the 
safest  and  best  custodianship  be  guaranteed?  There 
is  but  ONE  method  by  which  crude  media  can  be 
transformed,  and  that  is  BY  WORK,  or  rather,  by 
the  application  of  energy — energy  such  as  is  devel- 


TIMOCBACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          53 

oped  in  the  body  of  a  man  or  beast  or  from  natural 
reservoirs  of  the  same  utilized  by  machines. 

Coming  at  once  to  the  doings  of  men  as  they  have 
evolved  into  the  state  or  condition  that  we  call  civil- 
ized social  organization  or  modern  government,  the 
question  then  arises  under  which  form  or  plan  of 
this  social  organization  can  the  well-being  of  hu- 
manity be  best  subserved?  WEALTH  MUST  BE 
OWNED,  and  ownership  must  be  PUBLIC  OE  PRI- 
VATE. The  terms  best  suited  to  designate  each 
are  COLLECTIVEISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM. 

The  first,  SOCIALISM,  may  be  subdivided  into 
three  classifications:  The  first,  and  at  present  the 
most  prominent  and  objectionable  of  these  said 
types  of  socialism  is  what  may  be  properly  called 
FETICHISM,  which  holds,  that,  though  property 
may  be  privately  owned,  it  should  be  PUBLICLY 
CONTROLLED  by  commissioners  appointed  by 
some  centralized  power.  This  either  deprives  pri- 
vate ownership  of  its  rightful  prerogative,  or  cre- 
ates a  partnership  between  a  private  coterie  of 
monopolists  and  the  governmental  power,  which  is 
quite  as  objectionable  as  out  and  out  socialism,  and 
is  but  the  entering  wedge  by  which  socialism  may 
become  complete. 

This  plan  is  favored  by  some  monopolists  who 
doubtless  conclude  that  a  powerful  private  bureau- 
cracy controlling  all  of  some  necessary  commodity 
could  bring  such  influence  on  the  governmental  offi- 
cials as  to  secure  practically  what  they  want,  or  to 
so  shift  the  responsibility  for  monopolistic  extortion 
as  to  perpetuate  their  own  rapacity  under  the  guise 
of  government  sanction. 

If  MONOPOLY  cannot  exist,  it  cannot  be  rapac-  / 
eous,  and  if  commodities  are  produced  and  prices 


54  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

determined  by  the  laws  of  trade,  by  SUPPLY  AND 
DEMAND,  no  governmental  regulation  will  be 
needed  to  designate  prices.  The  people  do  not  want 
to  elect  their  public  servants  on  a  platform  that  de- 
mands that  they  will  or  will  not  permit  a  private 
monopoly  to  charge  this  or  that  price  for  necessary 
commodities,  but  what  they  should  want  is  TO 
ANNIHILATE  the  private  MONOPOLY  so  that 
they  can  regulate  said  prices  for  themselves. 

MONOPOLY  is  rendered  none  the  less  ATEO- 
CIOUS  and  unbearable  by  a  partnership  with  gov- 
ernment officials,  but  the  very  fact  that  some 
monopolists  seem  to  favor  that  plan  is  of  itself 
proof  that  the  time  is  now  at  hand  to  extirpate  and 
destroy  monopoly  or  to  complete  the  dissolution  of 
existing  social  conditions,  and  reorganize  them  on 
an  out  and  out  SOCIALISTIC  BASIS. 

President  William  H.  Taft  said  in  Pocatello, 
Idaho,  Oct.  6,  1911:  "We  must  go  back  to  competi- 
tion as  an  element  in  this  country.  If  it  is  impossi- 
ble, then  let  us  go  to  Socialism,  for  there  is  no  way 
between.  /  am  an  individualist  and  not  a  Socialist." 

Individualism  (Private  ownership)  holds  to  the 
belief,  that,  as  sentiency  is  with  the  individual,  each 
man  should  exercise  his  energy,  his  wit  and  his 
powers  for  himself  or  for  his  immediate  dependants ; 
that  wealth  should  be  individually  owned  and  that 
the  commonwealth  should  have  the  least  possible 
power  or  function  consistent  with  social  order  and 
domestic  tranquility.  Between  the  extremes  of  the 
systems  there  are  those  who  hold  that  land  or  crude 
media  only  should  be  common  property,  or  (which 
is  practically  the  same)  that  land  rent  be  absorbed 
by  the  government.  Whether  an  individual  pays  to 
the  government  for  the  use  of  land,  full  rental  value 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCEACY          55 

in  the  shape  of  a  tax  or  in  the  shape  of  rent  alters 
not  the  result,  but  simply  changes  the  administra- 
tive function.  In  either  case  the  user  yields  to  the 
government  the  rental  value  of  the  land  he  occupies. 
Tenure  of  occupancy  would  be  as  well  guaranteed 
by  the  lease  from  the  government  at  the  price  of 
rental  value  as  by  a  tax  to  the  amount  of  rental 
value.  This  proposition  will  therefore  be  considered 
as  equivalent  to  public  land  ownership,  because  in 
practical  effect  it  would  be  publicly  owned.  This 
class  of  reformers,  for  the  purposes  of  this  work 
will  be  called  Geocrats  because  they  seek  what  they 
call  the  God-given  earth.  There  is  a  soul  of  truth 
in  geocracy  but  to  the  extent  that  it  proposes  the 
absorption  of  all  land  rents  it  is  neither  right,  ex- 
pedient nor  practical  and  would  in  actual  operation 
result  in  practically  the  same  conditions  as  to  land 
that  socialism  in  the  abstract  would  result  in  re- 
garding all  things  else.  "Unearned  Increment "  in 
thriving  localities  is  largely  offset  by  unavoidable 
decrement  in  decaying  localities. 

There  are  others  who  hold  that  only  the  things 
known  as  public  utility  should  be  owned  by  the  com- 
monwealth such  for  example  as  railways,  highways, 
canals,  and  water-ways,  telegraphs,  telephones,  and 
means  generally  of  inter-transportation  and  com- 
munication. Tendencies  toward  this  system  (Semi- 
Socialism)  especially  as  applied  to  municipalities, 
are  now  rapidly  on  the  increase.  In  all  the  affairs 
of  life,  "what  plea,  so  tainted  and  corrupt,  but,  be- 
ing seasoned  with  a  gracious  voice  obscures  the 
show  of  evil."  This  proposition  means  Socialism 
as  to  leading  industries  just  as  land  rent  absorption 
does  as  to  all  crude  media.  Both  are  subject  to  the 
objections  that  apply  to  Socialism  in  the  abstract, 


56  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

i.  e.,  Individual  Slavery;  Governmental  Bossism; 
Mai- Administration;  Diminished  Accumulation  and 
conservation. 

If  Socialism  as  a  whole  is  not  wise,  then,  as  to 
these  important  parts,  it  cannot  be  wise.  Briefly 
classified,  as  against  Individualism,  we  have  four 
types  of  collectiveism :  First,  Socialism;  Second, 
Fetichism;  Third,  Land  Taxism,  and,  Fourth,  Semi- 
Socialism. 

Since  sentiency  is  with  the  individual,  the  ten- 
dency of  higher  social  systems  must  be  towards  the 
liberty  and  not  towards  the  slavery  of  the  individu- 
al. But,  say  the  Socialists,  are  not  all  wage  workers 
wage  slaves  ?  '  *  Slavery  will  not  be  abolished, ' '  said 
Aristotle,  "till  the  shuttle  weaves  of  its  own  ac- 
cord. "  The  transformation  of  chattel  slavery  into 
wage  slavery  that  has  occurred  since  the  days  of 
Aristotle,  alters  not  the  principle  asserted  by  him; 
hence,  rightly  considered,  the  statement  attributed 
to  Aristotle  is  true.  "When  the  shuttle  weaves  of 
its  own  accord"  means  "when  utilities  are  trans- 
formed from  crude  media  by  energy  other  than  that 
generated  in  the  body  of  a  man."  Assuming  the 
earth  to  have  been  at  one  time  part  of  the  mass 
that  now  constitutes  the  sun,  its  (the  earth's)  own 
gravity  is  traceable  to  the  sun.  All  other  forms  of 
energy  are  indirectly  but  certainly  traceable  to  this 
central  orb.  The  winds,  the  tides,  the  currents  and 
the  cataracts  are  all  manifestations  of  sun  energy. 
Fuel  found  locked  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth 
is  but  stored  up  sun  energy.  The  life  functions  of 
all  living  things  are,  by  a  process,  traceable  to  the 
sun. 

Until  sun  energy,  direct,  converts  crude  media 
into  utilizable  forms,  i.  e.,  into  forms  desired  by  men, 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          57 

this  conversion  or  transformation,  must,  if  accom- 
plished at  all,  be  accomplished  by  energy  operating 
through  the  bodies  of  men  or  by  machines  made  by 
men,  and,  as  long  as  such  processes  are  necessary 
the  shuttle  "will  not  weave  of  its  own  accord/'  i.  e., 
things  or  utilities  must  be  transformed  by  men  who 
continually  utilize  more  of  the  sun's  power;  but  as 
long  as  human  energy  is  even  in  part  required,  there 
will  likely  be  employer-  and  employee-slavery  or 
something  akin  to  it  in  the  business  of  the  world, 
and  it  may  not,  even  then,  be  abolished.  There  is  no 
need  of  uselessly  adding  to  this  slavery,  slavery  to 
an  imperious  Socialistic  Boss,  or  to  a  Fetichistic 
political  commission. 

The  man  who  works  for  hire  is  not,  however, 
essentially  a  slave,  for  he  has  choice,  save  as  he 
may  be  dominated  by  need,  to  reject  said  wages. 
But  he  is  dominated  by  need,  say  the  Socialists,  and 
hence  he  is  a  slave.  He  is  not  at  all  times  or  in  all 
cases  thus  dominated, 

The  savage  who  hunts  for  game  must  find  it  or 
die — such  is  the  decree  of  nature  ' '  red  in  tooth  and 
claw" — hence  the  savage  is  a  slave.  The  wage 
earned  in  civilized  society  is  but  a  substitute  for  the 
game  caught  in  a  barbarous  society.  Both  must  get 
the  game  or  some  one  else  must  give  it  to  them  or 
both  must  die. 

We  will  provide  it  for  him,  say  the  Socialists,  so 
that  no  man  may  want.  Then  many  will  practice 
malignery  who  would  otherwise  work,  hence  the  so- 
ciety becomes  poor  and  ere  long  will  possess  little 
or  nothing  to  give. 

But,  says  the  Socialists,  many  a  good  man  is  will- 
ing to  work  but  can  get  no  job.  This  is  a  valid  ob- 
jection because  it  is  often  true. 


58  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

Just  here  come  in  the  Geocrats  and  say  "we  will 
provide  access  to  natural  opportunity  so  that  no 
man  need  be  idle."  "Man  has  a  natural  right  to  the 
use  of  the  earth,"  says  the  Geocrats.  The  fish  has 
access  to  the  waters  (his  element  of  crude  media) ; 
the  bird  to  the  air  (his  element  of  crude  media) ; 
hence,  say  the  Geocrats,  men  should  have  access 
to  the  soil,  to  the  forests,  to  the  mines,  the  winds, 
the  tides  and  the  cataracts — in  a  word  to  all  crude 
media  which  they  call  "land"  or  the  "God  given 
inheritance."  There  is  no  such  thing  in  nature  as 
"uninterrupted,"  but  there  should  be  Eneretic  and 
Equitable  access  to  natural  opportunity.  The  fish 
has  access  to  his  media  only  at  the  behest,  and  sub- 
ject to  the  destruction  of  other  fish  and  in  no  do- 
main of  nature  is  "killing  off"  so  ruthless  or  uni- 
versal. A  species  of  fish  to  survive  must  spawn 
millions  of  eggs — millions  of  minnows  feed  but  one 
mammoth. 

The  bird  has  access  to  the  air  only  subject  to  peril 
from  other  birds  of  prey  and  numberless  vicious 
enemies. 

The  land  flora  and  fauna  have  access  to  the  soil 
only  at  the  behest  or  subject  to  the  crowding  out 
process  of  stronger  flora  or  fauna.  The  beast  has 
access  only  at  the  behest  of  the  primaeval  man  who 
with  his  bow  and  arrow  kills  the  less  powerful  beast. 
The  aboriginal  man  has  access  only  at  the  behest 
of  the  civilized (?)  man  who  amid  the  reverberating 
thunder  of  his  victorious  guns  kills  off  the  aborig- 
ines. So  among  civilized  man,  the  strongest,  the 
brainiest,  the  most  energetic  or  the  most  frugal  by 
methods  of  barter  and  exchange  and  by  the  utiliza- 
tion of  the  labor  of  those  less  endowed  or  less  for- 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          59 

tunate,  drives  off  the  latter  and  thus  appropriates 
(we  call  it  owns)  the  natural  media  himself. 

He  then  transforms  it  into  useful  things  by  em- 
ploying other  men  and  becomes  rich  by  profiting  off 
of  their  labor.  The  Geocrats  propose  to  remedy 
this.  The  system  of  taxation  which  at  the  present 
time  they  propose  is  to  bring  about  that  access, 
which,  were  society  to  be  begun  anew,  they  would 
hold  inviolable.  If  the  principles  of  common  own- 
ership in  crude  media  is  correct,  if  it  would  redound 
to  the  greater  well  being  of  society,  then  the  Geo- 
crats  are  justified  in  trying  to  undo  by  taxation  or 
in  any  other  manner  what,  they  claim,  has  been  done 
by  spoilation. 

If  the  commonwealth  owned  all  natural  media, 
access  to  it  might  be  easier,  but  if  equal  and  exact 
justice  were  done  to  all  those  who  seek  to  use,  then 
the  price  of  that  occupancy  or  use  would  tend  to  be 
about  as  high  as  it  is  under  private  ownership  of 
said  media,  unless  favoritism  was  practiced  by  the 
Autocrat  in  control.  This  feature  (favoritism)  to 
persons  and  to  localities  would  be  very  objection- 
able to  all  Governmental  ownership,  control  or 
operation.  Of  course  some  lands  are  held  out  of  use 
Speculatively.  To  avoid  this,  general  rights  of  con- 
demnation would  be  the  logical  remedy;  but,  such 
"rights"  entail  many  wrongs  as  will  be  illustrated 
further  on  Chapter  on  Taxation. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Rich  Men  Custodians  of  Wealth :  Superior  Acqui- 
sition Natural:  Labor  Fairly  Recompensed:  Rich 
Men's  Accumulations  Benefit  All:  Wealth  Must 
Accumulate  Faster  Than  Population:  No  Over 
Production  of  Wealth:  Equitable  Distribution  De- 
fined: The  Insufficiency  Of  Wealth:  Useful  VS. 
Useless  Production:  Commercial  Trusts:  Benefi- 
cial When  Monopoly  Is  Prevented:  Limitations  To 
All  Things :  Cumulative  Tax  Applied  To  Industrial 
Monopoly:  Danger  of  Diminishing  Accumulation: 
Application  To  Banks — Half:  All  Owners  Should 
Be  Voters:  Publicity  By  Court  Order:  Labor 
Trusts  (Unions) :  Watering  Stocks  Not  Harmful 
Unless  Fraudulent :  Rich  Men  In  Society :  Vanish- 
ing Point  of  Custodianship:  Saving  And  Spend- 
ing :  Plutocratic  Ostentation  And  Hauteur : 

PROPOSITION  FIRST. 

That  "rich  men  are  the  custodians  of  the  world's 
wealth"  and  that  "their  accumulations  should  be  en- 
couraged." Shylockism  is  better  than  Socialism. 

The  essential  difference  between  a  civilized  so- 
ciety and  a  barbarous  society  is  that  in  the  former 
more  crude  media  has  been  transformed  into  utiliz- 
able  forms  than  in  the  latter.  Growing  out  of  this 
increased  transformation  but  directly  creditable  to 
it  are  the  superior  mental,  and,  on  the  average,  su- 

60 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          61 

perior  physical  development  of  the  human  race.  The 
civilized  man  knows  more,  and,  on  the  average,  lives 
longer  than  does  the  barbarian.  These  transforma- 
tions, as  has  been  stated,  result  from  the  application 
of  energy  as  developed  in  the  body  of  a  man  or  men 
or  from  reservoirs  of  energy  stored  up  in  nature 
and  utilized  by  machines.  Men  differ  in  fitness,  ex- 
cellence or  quality. 

One  man  by  reason  of  superior  muscle  or  brain 
or  both  of  these  or  by  superior  enterprise  and 
acquisitiveness,  not  only  transforms  more  media, 
but  conserves  or  accumulates  more  than  another 
man  or  men.  As  time  goes  on  and  as  his  faculties 
develop  he  begins  to  utilize  the  energies  of  nature 
to  a  greater  extent  than  another  man  or  men  which 
means  that  he  acquires  and  possesses  greater  facili- 
ties for  said  transformation  than  another  man  or 
men,  hence  he  becomes  richer  than  any  other  man  or 
men.  As  against  this  superior  skill  and  improved 
facilities  the  less  endowed  or  less  worthy  man  can- 
not successfully  compete,  hence  is  driven  out  of  the 
race,  unless  he  becomes  an  employee  of  the  superior 
man  or  men.  Off  of  the  labor  of  the  inferior  man 
the  superior  makes  a  profit,  hence  the  latter  becomes 
rich  and  the  former  remains  poor.  Added  to  this  is 
the  increase  in  value  of  the  property  possessed  by 
the  superior  man,  and  each  step  in  the  process  is  as 
natural  and  as  unavoidable  as  are  the  ebbs  and 
flows  of  the  tides  or  as  the  gravitation  of  the 
spheres. 

To  interfere  with  or  alter  this  natural  condition 
by  any  plan  whatever  except  to  prevent  monopoly 
tends  to  diminish  the  stimulus  to  exertion  possessed 
by  the  superior  man  or  men  without  correspond- 
ingly increasing  said  stimulus  in  the  inferior  man 


62  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

or  men,  which  diminishes  production  and  retards 
progress.  To  hand  over  for  consumption  and  use 
by  the  inferior  man  or  men  more  than  he  has  pro- 
duced or  accumulated  either  as  an  independent 
transformation  or  as  an  employee,  lessens  the  sum 
total  of  wealth  and  the  community  becomes  poorer. 
But,  say  those  who  favor  Socialism,  every  man 
should  receive  the  full  value  that  his  labor  justly 
represents,  and  that  conditions  which  admit  of  a 
profit  to  any  are  equivalent  to  robbery.  It  is  highly 
probable  that,  in  the  vast  majority  of  the  processes 
by  which  crude  material  is  transformed,  the  wage- 
earner  receives  a  reasonable  percentage  of  the  value 
that  his  services,  exclusive  of  appliances  furnished 
by  his  employer,  currently  produce.  It  is,  however, 
this  small  value  that  he  does  not  receive  that  is  the 
source  from  which  comes  almost  all  our  accumulated 
wealth.  Be  the  system  called  socialism,  fetichism, 
land-taxism  or  any  other  ism,  it  is  a  self-evident 
proposition  that,  if  under  it,  every  man  received 
the  full  value  that  he  produced  all  the  accumulation 
that  society  would  own  would  be  the  small  savings 
of  these  men.  Many  of  them  would  save  nothing, 
and  the  savings  of  the  few  frugal  ones  would  be 
so  small  and  so  widely  scattered  and  diffused  that 
it  would  be  practically  unavailable  for  enterprises 
of  " great "  or  even  of  moderate  "pith  and  mo- 
ment. "  If  the  system,  by  what  name  soever  it  be 
designated,  required  that  each  man  should  contrib- 
ute to  the  common  fund  in  the  ratio  of  his  ability 
and  each  draw  from  said  fund  in  the  ratio  of  his 
needs,  few  men,  however  capable,  would  long  con- 
tribute more  than  the  weakest,  and  each  would  de- 
sire to  consume  as  much  as  the  greatest.  The  result 
would  be  diminished  production  and  increased  con- 


TIMOCBACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          63 

sumption,  hence  no  accumulation,  but  likely  a  very 
large  deficiency. 

Either  a  percentage  of  what  men  produce  would 
have  to  be  exacted  from  them  and  be  placed  in  the 
coffers  of  the  state,  there  to  be  absorbed,  dissipated 
and  squandered  by  a  multitude  of  public  agents  or 
officials,  or  the  capitalistic  wage-paying  and  wage- 
profiting  system  or  something  akin  to  it,  must  con- 
tinue or  there  would  be  no  accumulation,  and  ac- 
cumlation  is  as  essential  as  production  if  standards 
of  living  are  to  be  materially  improved. 

In  almost  all  discussions  on  these  questions  the 
great  and  all-essential  factor  of  INCREASED  AC- 
CUMULATION is  usually  ignored  or  considered 
of  no  essential  importance  in  social  affairs. 

More  and  worse  than  this :  the  accumulator  is  oft- 
times  reviled,  anathematized  and  scorned  as  a  miser, 
a  skinflint,  or  a  disreputable  member  of  society. 
How  much  better  it  would  be  for  all  mankind  if  we 
had  many  more  such  disreputable  members  of  so- 
ciety than  we  have!  All  accumulations  are  more 
valuable  to  society  than  any  dissipations  can  be.  It 
is  not  advocated  herein  that  an  accumulator  should 
gather  gold  coin  or  currency  and  bury  it  in  a  vault ; 
but  that  he  should  do  as  all  wise  accumulators  do, 
viz :  invest  it  in  some  gainful  enterprise,  or  loan  it  to 
some  other  man  or  company  against  good  security, 
which  wise  accumulators  always  exact,  who  want 
to  drain  a  swamp  or  irrigate  a  desert  or  do  some 
other  useful  or  beneficent  thing. 

These  are  the  conditions  under  which  money  (ac- 
cumulated wealth)  makes  the  mare  go  with  greatest 
speed  and  to  best  advantage  for  the  entire  world, 
rich  and  poor  alike. 

If  it  is  by  these  natural  and  beneficent  processes 


64  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

that  some  men  become  rich,  why  condemn  their  ac- 
cumulations if  not  monopolized,  when,  for  the  most 
part,  they  are  reinvested  for  further  gain  to  them- 
selves, which  means  further  and  greater  and  cheaper 
access  to  and  use  of  wealth  by  the  entire  body  poli- 
tic? Be  it  remembered  always  that,  other  things 
equal,  the  greater  the  wealth  in  any  community  per 
capita,  the  easier  and  cheaper  does  access  to  and  the 
use  of  it  become,  unless  it  is  absorbed  by  the  accu- 
mulator in  private  castles,  private  parks,  private 
preserves,  and  the  like  for  his  own  use  and  enjoy- 
ment, or  consumed  in  luxurious  and  ostentatious  liv- 
ing, or  viciously  monopolized. 

Against  this  abuse  of  the  use  of  wealth,  society 
should  assert  ITS  EIGHT  to  interpose  its  opposing 
voice,  and  should  make  that  voice  effectual.  In  the 
language  of  that  great  EMPIRE  BUILDEE  of  the 
great  Northwest,  James  J.  Hill:  "It  is  the  cost  of 
high  living  that  makes  the  cost  of  all  living  high." 
The  demand  for  useless  and  luxurious  things  stimu- 
lates producers  to  produce  those  things  thereby  con- 
suming capital  and  energy  that  would  otherwise  be 
devoted  to  the  production  of  USEFUL  things. 

But,  say  the  socialists  or  collectiveists,  would  not 
the  benefit  be  still  greater  if  all  became  rich?  Un- 
doubtedly, provided  they  do  so  by  increased  produc- 
tion and  conservation,  otherwise  what  some  gain 
others  must  lose.  If,  however,  all  became  rich  faster 
than  the  shuttle  weaves  of  its  own  accord  there 
would  be  no  "wage  slaves"  to  perform  menial  occu- 
pations, hence  production  would  be  diminished  and 
accumulation  would  stop.  To  the  words  "wage 
slave"  and  "menial  occupation"  there  will  be  of 
course  go  out  a  look  of  derision  and  scorn  by  all  who 
believe  in  the  so-called  brotherhood  of  men.  Until 


TIMOCBACY    VS.  DEMOCRACY          65 

"the  shuttle  weaves  of  its  own  accord "  it  must  be 
propelled  by  men  or  by  machinery  made  by  men. 
Until  menial  occupations  perform  themselves  they 
must  be  performed  by  men  or  by  machines  made  by 
men,  and  until  these  machines  can  reproduce  them- 
selves they,  too,  must  require  some  menial  labor  in 
their  formation  or  construction. 

If  all  men  were  equally  rich,  all  would  be  equally 
poor,   for   wealth   and   poverty   are   only   relative  \/ 
terms. 

As  wealth  is  accumulated  to-day  the  real  differ- 
ence between  a  poor  man  and  a  rich  one,  so  far  as 
the  use  of  wealth  is  concerned,  is,  in  rich  communi- 
ties, only  about  $5.00  per  hundred  per  year,  or, 
rather,  for  $5.00  per  hundred  per  year,  clear  of 
taxes  and  repairs,  a  poor  man  gets  the  same  use  of 
a  rich  man's  wealth  (save  the  private  properties 
heretofore  named)  that  the  rich  man  himself  does, 
and  the  difference  between  this  cost  of  use  by  each 
of  them  is  daily  becoming  less  as  accumulation  be- 
comes greater.  The  next  best  thing  therefore  to  be- 
ing rich  is  to  encourage  others  to  become  so.  If 
publicly  owned,  this  "price  for  use"  could  not  be 
less,  for,  if  so,  accumulation  would  stop. 

If  it  is  true  that  the  transformation  of  crude  media 
into  utilizable  forms  is  desirable  and  that  it  does  re- 
dound to  the  good  or  to  the  well  being  of  mankind, 
then  the  proposition  is  equally  true  no  matter  who 
owns  it,  provided  access  or  use  is  vouchsafed  at  the 
current  interest  or  rental  rates. 

If  it  is  true  that  some  men  called  capitalists  do 
conserve  and  accumulate  said  wealth  and  that  they 
do  hold  most  of  it  open  for  use,  often  by  endowing 
beneficent  institutions,  otherwise  non-existent,  and 
always  at  current  interest  or  rental  rates,  then  it  is 


66  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

true  that  these  capitalists  are  a  benefit  and  not  an 
injury  to  society,  because  the  masses  do  not  suf- 
ficiently accumulate,  and  accumulation  is  absolutely 
necessary. 

Vast  enterprises  cannot  be  undertaken,  much  less 
accomplished,  without  vast  wealth. 

The  increased  facility  that  they  insure  usually 
more  than  compensates  for  the  cost  of  their  con- 
struction. WEALTH  MUST  ACCUMULATE,  NOT  ONLY  AS 

FAST  BUT  FASTER  THAN  POPULATION  INCREASES  if  living 

conditions  are  to  be  improved.  If  1,000  barbarians 
are  increased  to  10,000,  and  no  wealth  is  accumu- 
lated in  either  case,  all  are  barbarians  still.  If  there 
is  $100  per  capita  in  each  case  the  latter  10,000  live 
no  better  than  the  former  1,000 ;  but  if  in  the  latter 
10,000  there  is  $200  per  capita,  access  is  cheaper 
and  all  live  better. 

Wealth,  when  accumulated,  must  be  taken  care  of 
or  it  will  perish.  If  the  capitalist  is  not  a  custodian 
of  wealth,  then  what  is  his  relation  to  that  all  essen- 
tial transformed  or  crude  media  for  which  labor  has 
or  is  willing  to  exchange  itself?  A  consumer  of  it 
he  is  not,  save  of  what  he  and  his  dependents  may 
actually  use.  If  used  by  others,  then  others  are  the 
consumers.  Use  could  not  be  granted  for  nothing 
else  ere  long  there  would  be  nothing  to  use ;  but  the 
price  of  use  does  tend  to  be  less  as  wealth  becomes 
greater  and  this  is  the  all-important  factor  in  social 
organization. 

Wealth,  say  some  cooperators,  is  over-produced 
already ;  that  the  price  of  the  hire  of  the  wage  slave 
and  his  inability  to  get  work  is  because  of  over- 
production. If  things  are  over-produced,  then  the 
community  is  too  rich,  and,  to  remedy  that  evil,  it 
must  be  made  poorer. 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCEACY          67 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  if  all  the  machines  in 
all  civilized  countries  and  all  labors  in  the  same  were 
continuously  occupied  for  ten  hours  per  day,  more 
of  most  any  article  would  be  produced  in  average 
years  of  commerce  and  business  than  could  be  dis- 
posed of  to  consumers. 

But  over-production  in  any  line  cannot  long  exist, 
for  the  reason  that  overplus  in  quantity  tends  to- 
ward betterment  in  quality  and  to  quality  there  can 
be  no  maximum  limit. 

If  as  many  houses  exist  as  the  community  can 
rent  the  tendency  of  currently  accumulating  wealth 
is  to  tear  down  old  houses  and  build  up  new  and 
better  houses.  The  same  is  true  in  all  lines  of  in- 
dustry and  even  in  agriculture.  If  more  cotton  is 
raised  than  can  readily  be  sold  the  tendency  is  to 
raise  better  cotton  and  less  of  it,  so  that  given  time 
for  adjustment,  quality  improves  when  quantity  is 
not  demanded  which  is  alike  beneficial  to  society  be- 
cause the  improved  article  will  tend  to  rent  or  sell 
for  the  same  price  as  did  its  poorer  predecessor. 
A  certain  number  of  days '  labor  will  secure  a  much 
better  abode  to-day  than  50  years  ago.  But  if  it  is 
true  that  there  is  too  much  wealth,  then  less  wealth 
is  the  remedy,  that  is,  society  must  become  poorer. 

No,  say  all  reformers,  what  we  want  is  not  less 
wealth,  but  "AN  EQUITABLE  DISTEIBUTION" 
of  existing  and  subsequently  transformed  wealth. 
What  constitutes  an  "EQUITABLE  DISTRIBU- 
TION"? Things  to  be  followed  must  be  defined. 
Timocracy  maintains  that  a  fair  definition  of  "equit- 
able distribution "  is  an  ABUNDANCE,  but  not  a 
EEDUNDANCE,  for  the  preservation  of  SELF,  of 
OFFSPEING  and  of  SOCIETY.  This  means  that 
any  man  or  woman  shall  be  permitted  to  inherit,  ac- 


68  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

cumulate,  own  and  control  an  amount  of  wealth  suf- 
ficient for  at  least  THEEE  generations,  or  for  one 
generation  beyond,  or  after,  self  and  offspring, 
which  latter  generation  represents  the  race  or  so- 
ciety. To  preserve  the  race  each  married  couple 
must  bring  into  the  world  about  FOUR  children. 
Under  the  Timocratic  cumulative  rate,  a  25-million- 
dollar  estate  could  be  inherited. 

If  this  estate  was  simply  preserved  intact,  i.  e., 
not  increased  or  decreased  by  outside  gain  or  ex- 
penditure beyond  income,  each  of  16  grandchildren 
could  become  possessed  of  something  over  one  mil- 
lion each.  As  there  are  millions  of  couples  who 
would  leave  nothing  to  their  offspring,  it  is  question- 
able whether  or  not  this  amount  is  sufficient  to  as- 
sure INCREASED  ACCUMULATION.  If  not  suf- 
ficient, the  rate  would  have  to  be  less  drastic.  Ex- 
perience alone  could  demonstrate  sufficiency. 

Equitable  distribution  to  a  wage  slave  is  a  fair 
part  of  the  value  of  the  product  that  has  been  added 
by  his  labor,  and  likewise  the  employer  is  entitled  to 
interest  on  his  investment  and  to  a  fair  profit  for 
his  own  talent  and  for  the  risk  he  takes  in  providing 
the  wage  slave  with  an  opportunity  to  labor. 

Of  course  socialists  object  to  this  profit,  and  to 
the  idea  that  he  should  allow  anything  for  oppor- 
tunity, holding  that  the  State  should  make  the  profit 
if  any  is  made,  and  that  opportunity  is  his  as  a  mat- 
ter of  right.  Whenever  he  can  enforce  this  condi- 
tion it  will  be  his  and  not  before. 

The  question  is,  is  it  best  for  society  that  he 
should  enforce  this  condition,  even  if  he  could? 
Timocracy  says  not. 

In  the  complex  condition  of  production  that  now 
exists,  it  is  impossible  to  determine  the  exact  part 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          69 

of  production  that  has  been  contributed  by  a  wage 
slave. 

Until  socialism  is  established,  the  aim  must  be, 
' '  get  all  you  can, ' '  i.  e.,  all  your  individual  excellence 
or  labor  organization  can  command,  but  proceed 
within  the  law  as  at  present  administered,  or  worse 
conditions  will  confront  all  wage  slaves.  When  so- 
cialism is  established,  distribution  will  not  be  "more 
equitable,"  because  individual  excellence,  upon 
which  alone  EQUITY  in  anything  is  based,  is  incom- 
patable  with  harmony  in  a  socialistic  organization. 

The  result  would  likely  be  very  disappointing  to 
the  slaves  of  the  over  lords  which  socialism  must 
create  and  maintain. 

Nevertheless,  tendencies  toward  socialistic  sys- 
tems are  on  the  increase  and  are  likely  to  be  accel- 
erated. 

The  reasons  why  these  tendencies  are  on  the  in- 
crease is  because  private  ownership  is  tending  to- 
ward private  monopoly  and  because  many  people 
honestly  think  that  they  see  gerat  evil  if  not  actual 
ruin  in  the  colossal  aggregations  of  individual 
wealth.  Properly  considered,  these  fears  are 
groundless.  If  as  wealth  (by  which  is  meant  all 
utilizable  forms  and  values)  per  capita  increases, 
the  price  for  consumption  and  use  does  not  DE- 
CREASE, it  is  because  the  demand  per  capita 
caused  by  higher  standarsd  of  living  or  for  other 
causes  has  increased  proportionately,  or  because 
said  increased  wealth  is  represented  by  useless  pri- 
vate forms,  or  by  useless  governmentalism,  or  be- 
cause access  to  it  is  withheld  by  vicious  monopoly 
of  one  form  or  another.  Cumulative  taxation  would 
correct  useless  private  forms  and  vicious  monopoly, 
but  useless  governmentalism  can  only  be  corrected 


70  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

by  curtailing  governmental  functions.  If  said  taxa- 
tion should  be  too  drastic  it  would  also  prevent  ac- 
cumulation, and  the  same  result  would  be  caused 
that  it  sought  to  remedy,  viz.,  less  wealth  per  capita, 
and  consequently  high  prices  for  consumption  and 
use. 

THE  INSUFFICIENCY  OF  WEALTH. 

However  unreasonable  it  may  appear  even  to  un- 
prejudiced men,  it  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that 
the  true  cause  why  the  living  standard  of  the  masses 
is  so  low  is  that  the  WOELD'S  WEALTH  IS  TOO 
LITTLE  to  make  it  much  higher.  In  the  United 
States  of  America  in  1890  wealth  per  capita  was 
about  $1,000.  In  1900  it  was  about  $1,250.  If  it  was 
$12,500  per  capita  instead  of  $1,250,  there  would  be 
more  multi-millionaires,  but  the  price  for  the  use  of 
wealth  would  be  very  much  less,  which  would  mean 
that  standards  of  living  could  and  would  be  very 
much  higher.  The  remedy  therefore  must  be  MOEE 
WEALTH.  By  production  and  conservation  alone 
can  more  wealth  exist,  and  when  it  does  exist  (even 
if  privately  owned  and  not  privately  absorbed)  then 
and  not  till  then  will  living  standards  for  humanity 
be  materially  improved.  We  think  wealth  is  very 
abundant  because,  in  the  hands  of  the  few  whom,  it 
seems,  nature  decrees  shall  own  it,  it  APPEAES  to 
be  abundant.  In  point  of  fact,  it  is  not  so,  when  we 
consider  the  millions  who  own  nothing.  Socialism 
will  not  cause  the  millions  to  own  more,  but  will 
surely  cause  less  production  and  less  accumulation, 
hence  LOWEK  instead  of  HIGHEE  standards  of 
living  for  all.  If  consumption  or  the  living  standard 
of  all  citizens  of  the  United  States  of  America  were 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          71 

raised  more  than  about  ten  cents  per  day,  then,  un- 
less production  was  increased,  there  would  be  a  loss 
which,  in  time,  would  mean  retrogression  and 
bankruptcy.  LIVING  STANDARDS  FOR  ALL 
CANNOT  BE  MUCH  HIGHER  UNTIL  WEALTH 
PER  CAPITA  IS  MUCH  GREATER. 

The  reason  why  the  living  standard  of  the  masses 
is  so  low  is  not  because  a  few  men  are  superabun- 
dantly rich,  but  because  the  whole  people  (the  few 
rich  included)  are  superabundantly  poor.  The 
statement  that,  if,  during  the  ten  years  intervening 
between  1890  and  1900,  the  whole  people  had  en- 
joyed a  living  standard  of  only  10  cents  per  day  bet- 
ter than  they  experienced,  society  would  have  taken 
a  step  toward  bankruptcy  unless  production  had 
been  greater  than  it  was  during  that  period,  appears 
ridiculous ;  but,  if  statistics  are  even  measurably  cor- 
rect, that  statement  is  substantially  true.  If  it  is 
true  that  the  per  capita  wealth  of  the  United  States 
of  America  in  1870  was  about  $780  and  in  1890  it 
was  about  $1,000  and  in  1900  about  $1,250,  then  it  is 
true  that  the  gain  during  that  period  was  less  than 
$20  per  capita  per  year.  This  appears  very  small, 
but  when  we  look  around  us  we  are  obliged  to  con- 
clude that  the  average  family  of  five  people  is  not 
$100  richer  than  it  was  the  previous  year.  In  fact, 
many  are  actually  poorer.  Tending  to  confirm  this 
view,  it  is  reported  that  the  savings  bank  deposits  in 
New  York  increased  only  63  million  per  year  for  five 
years  prior  to  1904.  There  were  reported  to  be 
2,365,583  depositors,  which  represents  only  an  aver- 
age per  capita  annual  gain  of  about  $26.60.  If,  there- 
fore, even  these  despositors  (to  say  nothing  of  the 
millions  who  saved  nothing)  had  lived  at  a  standard 
of  10  cents  per  day  of  $36.50  per  year  higher  than 


72  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

they  did,  and  produced  no  more  than  they  did,  there 
would  have  been  a  shortage  (unless  they  possessed 
other  savings)  of  about  $10  per  capita  per  year  for 
this  comparatively  frugal  class.  If  those  who  save 
nothing  are  included  and  given  a  living  standard  of 
10  cents  per  day  higher,  we  find  that  an  annual  de- 
ficiency of  $16.50  per  capita  per  year  would  have 
resulted  unless  production  had  been  greater.  The 
riches  of  the  few  are  observed  in  the  contrasts  of  liv- 
ing standards,  but  the  magnitude  of  the  numbers  of 
the  comparatively  and  lamentably  poor  appears  to 
be  overlooked.  When  the  total  wealth  aggregates 
ten  times  as  much  per  capita  as  it  now  does,  which, 
at  the  present  rate  of  gain  will  be  many  years  in  the 
future,  then  all  the  people  could  live,  on  that  basis  of 
production,  at  a  standard  of  about  $1  per  day  bet- 
ter than  all  now  live  without  drifting  backward  to- 
ward inevitable  bankruptcy.  It  is  probable,  how- 
ever, unless  arrested  by  socialism  or  kindred  sys- 
tems, that  both  production  and  accumulation  will  be 
rapidly  accelerated  so  that  in  a  less  number  of  yars 
than  now  appear  necessary,  a  standard  of  living  for 
all,  $1.00  per  day  or  its  equivalent  better  than  all 
who  now  live  can  be  attained;  but,  even  then,  pro- 
duction and  accumulation  will  have  to  be  maintained 
at  that  standard.  Increased  production  and  accumu- 
lation, therefore,  is  the  only  way  to  reach  better  liv- 
ing standards.  Socialists  claim  that,  if  their  plan 
was  adopted  everybody  could  live  much  better  than 
they  now  do  with  working  hours  reduced  to  three  or 
four  per  day  by  the  simple  method  of  making  all 
idlers  work.  It  does  not  appear  probable  that  there 
are  enough  idlers  to-day,  who  would  then  be  forced 
to  work  to  produce  as  much  in  three  or  four  hours  as 
we  now  produce  in  ten.  The  real  truth  is,  that, 


TIMOCBACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          73 

though  very  much  better  than  it  ever  was  before, 
this  old  earth  of  ours  is  as  yet  the  hard  earth  to  live 
upon.  It  is  not  yet  sufficiently  rich,  taking  as  an  en- 
tirety, for  all  its  people  to  live  at  a  standard  that 
averages  much  higher  than  present  conditions  make 
manifest.  Lamentable  though  it  be,  it  must  be  na- 
ture 's  decree  that  the  poor  always  have  been,  are 
now,  and  always  will  be  with  us  until  the  whole 
world  becomes  richer.  Socialism  might  temporarily 
alleviate,  but  it  would  ultimately  further  prostrate, 
unless  present  indications  are  erroneously  inter- 
preted. If,  however,  it  ever  will  result  in  greater 
accumulation,  many  other  arguments  against  it  will 
vanish. 

The  only  respects  in  which  rich  men,  who  are  not 
monopolists,  fail  to  do  good  to  society  is  in  excessive 
private  use  of  wealth,  or  in  expanding  their  accumu- 
lations in  luxurious  or  useless  things.  In  former 
days  and  largely  in  the  present  day  much  of  the 
wealth  of  the  community  was  and  is  invested  in 
cathedrals,  in  costly  tombs,  in  mausoleums,  and  in 
handsome  but  useless  towers  and  pyramids.  But, 
say  all  cooperators,  does  not  this  give  work  to  wage 
slaves  f  It  does,  but  the  same  wealth  utilized  in  mak- 
ing better  abodes  for  the  living,  in  draining  swamps, 
irrigating  deserts  and  making  better  conditions  for 
life  would  give  just  as  much  work  to  wage  slaves 
and,  when  the  work  had  been  done,  USEFUL  forms 
to  which  access  would  be  cheaper  would  supplant 
USELESS  forms  to  which  there  is  no  access  at  all ; 
that  tends  to  ameliorate  the  pangs  of  the  living. 

In  a  word,  capitalists  do  society  the  most  good 
when  they  invest  in  things  out  of  which  they  can  get 
GEEATEE  wealth,  i.  e.,  from  which  they  can  be- 
come still  richer,  for  a  revenue  implies  USE  of  the 


74  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

articles  produced,  and  the  more  of  USABLE  arti- 
cles there  are  the  cheaper  does  access  to  them  be- 
come. Is  it  not  wiser  to  DAM  the  Nile  and  irrigate 
the  desert,  causing  golden  grain  to  wave  over  glar- 
ing sands,  than  to  DAM  the  people  and  perpetuate 
the  desert  by  building  tombs  and  pyramids  to  com- 
memorate kings  I 

It  is  a  very  praiseworthy  fact  in  society  that  some 
custodians  of  wealth  who  possess  incomes  of  thou- 
sands upon  thousands  are  content  to  use,  consume 
or  to  live  upon  only  a  few  thousands  per  year. 

The  common  belief  is  that  such  a  man  is  an  injury 
to  society. 

He  should  SPEND  his  wealth,  say  the  agitators 
and  fools,  circulate  his  money,  say  the  superficial 
thinkers.  The  facts  are  that  the  so-called  "skin- 
flint" is  doing  society  far  more  good  by  conserving 
much  and  consuming  little  than  he  could  possibly  do 
by  lavish  expenditure  for  USELESS  things  that 
would  soon  be  destroyed  or  otherwise  consumed. 

Of  course  this  tendency  may  beget  penuriousness 
which  is  always  unwise ;  but  excessive  economy  is  al- 
ways better  than  excessive  WASTE. 

0  the  miser  hoards  his  riches,  and  as  soon  as  he 
gets  a  few  thousand  dollars  he  invests  in  bonds  and 
seals  them  in  a  box,  say  the  average  self-imposed 
philosophers.  All  this  is  true  of  wise  accumulators, 
but  this  very  investment  in  bonds  enables  some  en- 
terprising man  or  company  to  build  a  house,  a  rail- 
way, a  bridge  or  a  waterway — to  do  something  to- 
ward the  transformation  of  crude  media  into  utiliza- 
ble  forms — and  the  skinflint  who  has  accumulated  it 
should  be  considered  a  great  benefactor  to  society. 
His  economy  in  the  consumption  of  things  which  in- 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          75 

creases  his  accumulations  for  reinvestment  in  pro- 
ductive enterprise  is  of  incalculable  advantage. 

Rich  men  are  undoubtedly  getting  richer,  but  poor 
men  are  undoubtedly  not  getting  poorer.  On  the 
contrary,  the  poor  are  also  getting  richer,  if  not  in 
increased  ownership  of  media  crude  or  transformed, 
then  in  increased  and  cheaper  access  to  and  use  of 
media  that  is  increasing  in  the  hands  of  conserva- 
tors of  wealth  which  is  practically  the  same  thing  as 
far  as  standards  of  living  are  concerned. 

The  poor  man  is  richer  when,  for  ten  days '  labor, 
he  can  rent  a  house  containing  a  bath  which  pre- 
viously cost  him  12  or  15  days '  labor.  The  tendency 
of  increased  accumulations  (which  imply  increased 
production  and  conservation)  is  to  better  the  quality 
and  cheapen  the  price. 

When  capitalists  cannot  build  houses,  railways, 
highways  and  waterways  that  pay  6  per  cent. 'on  the 
outlay,  they  will  build  them  that  pay  4  or  3  per  cent, 
on  the  outlay,  which  means  the  same  house  for  a 
lower  price  or  a  better  house  for  the  same  price. 
The  only  hope  for  the  betterment  of  the  living  con- 
dition of  humanity  is  this  increasing  production, 
either  in  quantity  or  quality  and  in  increased  con- 
servation by  accumulating  men.  The  rich  man  is  a 
blessing  and  his  accumulations  should  be  encour- 
aged, but  not  monopolized.  It  should  be  borne  in 
mind  that,  not  only  should  his  accumulations  be  en- 
couraged, but  he  should  also  be  encouraged  to  invest 
said  accumulations  in  useful  things,  not  in  pyramids, 
statues,  costly  cathedrals,  tombstones,  mausoleums, 
conservatories,  and  the  like,  but  in  houses,  bridges, 
railways,  highways,  waterways,  and  the  like.  If  for 
the  last  two  thousand  years,  or  since  the  period  of 
fairly  well-authenticated  history,  all  the  wealth  that 


76  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

has  been  invested  in  the  former  list  of  compara- 
tively USELESS  things,  had  been  invested  in  the 
latter  list  of  actually  USEFUL  things,  the  poorest 
man  in  the  community  would  to-day  be  living  in 
houses  at  least  as  comfortable  and  good  as  the  mid- 
dle class  occupy,  and  would  secure  them  for  the 
same  or  less  outlay  than  they  now  expend  for  hovels. 
All  classes  would  be  elevated.  If  to  this  sum  could 
be  added  all  the  wealth  expended  in  implements  and 
munitions  of  war,  such  as  forts,  arsenals,  battleships 
and  musketry,  the  whole  world  would  now  blossom 
like  a  rose  and  all  waste  places  would  be  like  the 
gardens  of  the  Hesperides. 

Statistics  show  that  the  more  numerous  the  mil- 
lionaires the  higher  the  standard  of  living  for  the 
MASSES.  In  Eussia  there  are  few  millionaires  and 
standards  are  lower  than  in  Germany  and  France. 
In  these  countries  there  are  fewer  millionaires  than 
in  the  British  Empire,  and  living  standards  are 
lower.  In  the  latter  Empire  millionaires  are  fewer 
than  in  America,  where  the  highest  living  standards 
prevail.  The  reason  for  this  is  obvious,  viz.:  The 
greater  the  wealth  the  easier  the  access,  and  the 
easier  the  access  the  higher  the  standards  of  living. 

COMMERCIAL  TRUSTS. 

Much  opposition  has  of  late  years  developed  to  a 
certain  method  of  aggregating  capital  for  the  benefit 
of  humanity  (and  such  aggregations  are  always 
beneficial  where  monopoly  is  prevented)  called 
TRUSTS.  TRUSTS,  so  called,  are  ofttimes  a  great 
benefit  to  the  public  and  whenever  beneficial  their 
organization  should  be  encouraged. 

It  would,  of  course,  be  folly  to  advocate  the  or- 


TIMOCEACY    VS.  DEMOCRACY          77 

ganization  of  a  TRUST  under  conditions  that  are 
not  favorable,  for  under  such  conditions  it  could 
not  long  continue,  hence  its  benefits  to  humanity 
would  be  only  temporary  and  brief.  When,  in  any 
line  of  business,  concentration  will  tend  to  increase 
facility  and  to  diminish  cost,  concentration  in  that 
line  should  be  encouraged.  Aye,  more  than  this, 
when  by  concentration  greater  excellence  can  be  as- 
sured at  no  greater  labor  cost  so  that  greater  profits 
can  be  earned  on  the  capital  invested  so  as  to  aid  in 
the  conservation  of  more  wealth,  concentration 
should  likewise  be  encouraged.  By  reason  of  in- 
creased facility,  which  reduces  cost,  the  prices  of 
commodities  subject  to  the  uniformity  and  efficiency 
of  trust  organizations  have  in  many  cases  grown 
less  and  not  greater  than  when  under  the  multi- 
formity and  inefficiency  of  numerous  little  shops. 
Of  course  a  condition  might  be  imagined  under 
which  one  man  or  company  might  own  all  x>r  a  large 
part  of  some  necessary  commodity,  and  under  the 
right  of  private  ownership  might  refuse  to  sell  any 
thereof,  or  place  thereon  a  prohibitory  price.  In 
such  event  the  people  should  FORCE  entry  and  use. 
The  remedy  against  this  VICIOUSNESS  IS  CUM- 
ULATIVE TAXATION,  and  TRUSTS,  if  organ- 
ized, would  exist  subject  to  said  taxation,  which 
would  be  much  better  than  anti-trust  enactments  be- 
cause there  would  be  a  WARNING  against  trans- 
gression that  would  be  definite  and  fixed. 

Some  remedy  against  VICIOUS  ABUSE  AND 
MONOPOLY  must  exist,  but  vioding  these, 
TRUSTS  must  exist  if  great  enterprises  are  to  be 
undertaken  and  accomplished. 

Among  other  beneficent  results,   TRUSTS  pre- 


78  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

vent  protracted  periods  of  depression  followed  by 
wild  speculative  activity. 

They  are,  as  it  were,  the  TEADE  WINDS  of  busi- 
ness, not  the  DOLDEUMS  and  the  CYCLONES. 
The  "feast  and  famine "  is  largely  supplanted  by  a 
healthful  sufficiency  at  all  times. 

Whilst  private  ownership  is  acknowledged  (which 
it  must  be  till  it  is  publicly  monopolized  or  Social- 
ized) no  anti-trust  legislation  can  cause  confiscation, 
no  matter  by  whom  owned,  either  in  whole  or  part ; 
but  can  only  enforce  SEGREGATION  of  a  previous 
consolidation  with  proportionate  ownership  yet  re- 
maining in  the  constituent  companies.  At  the  end 
of  one  generation,  however,  these  ownerships  would 
also  be  SEGEEGATED  by  the  CUMULATIVE  IN- 
HEEITANCE  TAX  as  proposed  herein,  provided 
this  tax  is  not  so  drastic  as  to  diminish  per  capita 
wealth  accumulation.  If  too  drastic  it  must  be  made 
less  so,  but  it  cannot  be  abolished  entirely  if  the 
abolition  of  private  monopoly  is  in  fact  desired  by 
society.  The  rate  proposed  would  permit  a  single 
heir  to  inherit  25  million  dollars,  which,  though  it 
seems  large  to  most  people  is,  in  fact,  not  excessive 
as  has  been  indicated  herein. 

In  organizing  a  trust  or  in  consolidating  indus- 
tries, whenever  a  bona  fide  purchase  and  sale  is 
made,  no  anti-trust  enactment  can  invalidate  that 
trust  transaction,  for,  if  so,  the  common  law  is  a 
farce  and  private  property  a  pretence. 

Whether  the  sellers  take  money  or  shares  in  the 
consolidated  company  is  a  matter  of  no  conse- 
quence, because,  if  they  take  the  former,  they  may 
soon  seek  to  buy  the  latter  as  a  safe  investment  for 
their  capital. 

In  a  word,  TEUSTS,  or  aggregations  of  capital 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCEACY          79 

where  fraud  is  not  practiced,  or  MONOPOLY  crea- 
ted, are,  on  the  whole,  a  benefit  to  humanity,  and 
their  organization  should  be  encouraged. 

The  accumulation  of  wealth,  no  matter  who  owns 
it,  is  beneficial  or  it  is  not  beneficial  to  society.  If  it 
is  beneficial,  then  opposition  to  systematized  meth- 
ods of  accumulation  is  illogical. 

If  it  is  not  beneficial,  then  rebarberization  is 
logical. 

But  there  are  limitations  to  all  things  and  pro- 
cesses that  human  intelligence  comprehends.  There 
are  limits  to  our  grand  and  lofty  mountains  and  also 
to  our  broad  and  multitudinous  seas. 

Only  space,  matter  and  motion  are  unlimited. 
Even  the  great  globe  itself  and  all  which  it  inherits 
is  limited  and  i '  shall  dissolve, ' '  etc.  It  is  not  there- 
fore unreasonable  to  conclude  with  the  great  law- 
giver, Solon,  " NOTHING  IN  EXCESS/'  and  that  there 
are  proper  limitations  to  the  possession  of  individ- 
ual wealth.  Private  fortunes  should  grow  to  that 
magnitude  which  preserves  SELF,  OFFSPEING 
and  EACE  and  which  assures  the  greatest  accumu- 
lation of  wealth;  but  they  should  be  as  popularly 
owned  as  is  consistent  with  said  greatest  accumula- 
tion. 

Business  enterprises  of  all  kinds  should  be  per- 
mitted to  expand  to  that  magnitude  which  will  as- 
sure the  greatest  facility  in  operation  and  the  great- 
est economy  in  production.  Beyond  this  limit  there 
is  no  need  for  the  expansion  of  estates  or  corpora- 
tions. 

The  question  is,  WHAT  IS  THE  PEOPEE 
LIMIT  ?  No  limit  can  be  absolutely  determined,  but 
one  large  enough  to  remove  all  doubt  can  be  de- 


80  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

termined,  and  this  will  not  be  so  monopolistic  as  to 
be  at  all  objectionable  if  properly  regulated  by 
cumulative  taxation. 

In  dealing  with  all  business,  society  should  look 
to  GEOSS  OUTPUT  and  not  to  CAPITALIZA- 
TION OE  TO  NET  PEOFIT,  as  both  of  the  latter 
are  indefinite  and  subject  to  manipulation,  malver- 
sation, secretiveness  and  evasion. 

If  the  tax  rate  hereinbefore  named,  to  wit,  THE 
ONE-MILLIONTH  PEE  CENT,  was  applied  to  the 
MONTHLY  (not  yearly)  output  or  business  of  all 
commercial  enterprises,  except  BANKS,  then  when 
a  monthly  business  of  FIVE  MILLION  dollars  was 
done,  a  tax  rate  of  FIVE  PEE  CENT,  would  have 
to  be  paid.  Assuming  the  average  profit  of  large 
concerns  to  be  10  per  cent,  on  sales  or  business  (and 
statistics  show  that  they  average  fully  that)  then 
one-half  of  said  profit  would  go  to  the  people,  or 
to  the  Government,  when  that  maximum  was 
reached. 

This  would  automatically  force  the  segregation  of 
corporations  when  a  business  of,  say,  60  million  per 
year  was  done.  Of  course,  proportionate  holdings 
would  be  unaltered,  but,  be  it  remembered,  that,  at 
the  end  of  one  generation  the  CUMULATIVE  IN- 
HEEITANCE  TAX  would  segregate  these  hold- 
ings, and  that  is  as  soon  as  they  should  be  segre- 
gated. 

It  is  not  at  all  presumable  or  probable  that  a 
larger  concern  than  one  of  this  magnitude  would 
add  anything  to  facility  for  operation  or  to  cheap- 
ness of  production,  and  if  not  no  larger  single  en- 
terprise is  to  be  recommended. 

The  tendency  would  not  likely  be  to  curtail  ac- 
cumulation because  smaller  concerns,  against  which 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCEACY          81 

the  tax  would  be  less,  could  sell  at  the  same  price 
and  make  a  greater  net  profit. 

No  concern  doing  a  business  of  less  than,  say,  one 
million  per  month  should  be  subject  to  said  cumula- 
tive tax  rate,  because,  be  it  remembered,  that  the 
tax  is  NOT  AIMED  AT  BUSINESS  OE  PEOP- 
EETY,  BUT  AT  MONOPOLY.  It  is  better  to  es- 
tablish some  regular  and  definite  SYSTEM  or  plan 
like  the  millionth  per  cent,  with  respect  to  which  all 
enterprises  could  organize  and  to  which  they  could 
adjust  themselves,  than  to  subject  all  concerns  to 
the  uncertainty  and  caprice  of  doubtful  legislation 
or  litigation.  UNCEETAINTY  is  the  greatest  of 
all  barriers  against  business  enterprise.  It  does  not 
matter  so  much  what  the  conditions  are,  provided 
they  are  just  and  practicable,  if  only  they  are 
DEFINITE  and  not  altered  after  they  are  once  in- 
stituted. If  the  "millionth  per  cent."  is  too  dras- 
tic or  not  enough  so,  it  could  be  changed  to  fit  the 
conditions. 

Eeformers  must  take  great  care  lest,  in  seeking  to 
steer  clear  of  the  Scylla  of  inequitable  distribution, 
that  they  do  not  wreck  society  in  the  Charybdis  of 
diminished  accumulation. 

With  such  an  automatic  balance  wheel  on  enter- 
prises, prices  would  need  no  regulation  by  Govern- 
ment commissions,  and  no  abuses  could  be  prac- 
ticed that  would  be  damaging  to  society.  Under  it, 
TEUSTS  could  yet  be  organized,  as  they  should  be 
when  not  monopolistic,  and  they  would  need  no 
pestiferous  intermediation  of  the  Governmental 
Fetich,  even  as  to  discrimination  in  rates  which  is 
not  necessarily  an  abuse  of  private  ownership,  but  at 
times  is  the  very  thing  to  be  done  to  meet  certain 
conditions.  Large  and  uniform  transactions  in  all 


82  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

lines  of  industry  always  have  and  always  should 
command  cheaper  rates  than  small  and  multiform 
transactions.  But  for  this  fact  EETAIL  trade 
would  be  impossible  because  unprofitable,  and  if  re- 
tail trade  is  not  possible  there  can  be  no  systematic 
and  business-like  distribution  of  merchandise. 

It  would  be  as  reasonable  to  prevent  a  large  fac- 
tory from  selling  a  million  dollar  order  to  a  large 
jobber  or  retailer  at  a  cut  rate  as  to  prevent  a  rail- 
road company  from  transporting  a  million-dollar 
shipment  at  a  cut  rate.  Both  might  be  very  bene- 
ficial to  society.  The  large  order  might  keep  a  fac- 
tory in  operation  throughout  a  dull  season,  hence 
give  employment  to  thousands  of  operatives  who 
might  otherwise  be  idle  for  a  long  period,  and  the 
cut  rate  on  freights  might  cause  the  opening  of  a 
mine  or  quarry  that  would  otherwise  remain  idle  or 
unproductive.  Even  the  consuming  masses  might 
be  benefited  by  cheaper  prices  for  a  long  time. 

All  things  considered,  society  is  benefited  more  by 
permitting  business  conditions  (when  not  monopo- 
lized) to  be  met  by  the  owners  of  establishments 
than  by  any  interference  of  Government  commis- 
sioners, who  cannot  know  the  requirements  of  a 
business  situation  as  well  as  owners  can  know  them. 

BANKS  AND  CUMULATIVE  TAXATION 

As  credits  are  LOANED,  not  SOLD,  and  as  prof- 
its are  only  from  4  to  6  per  cent.,  it  is  proposed  that 
the  rate  on  Banks  be  HALF  that  on  other  business 
enterprises. 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCEACY          83 

COEPOEATE  ORGANIZATIONS. 
ALL  OWNEES  SHOULD  BE  VOTEES. 

Ownership  should  carry  with  it  the  privileges, 
powers  and  conditions  of  ownership,  which  means 
CONTEOLLEESHIP.  Most  of  the  corporations  of 
the  country  (especially  railroad  companies)  are  not 
controlled  by  their  owners. 

In  most  cases  the  common  stock  only,  which  often 
has  no  intrinsic  value  and  earns  no  dividends,  con- 
trols the  corporation.  It  is  attributable  largely  if 
not  wholly  to  this  fact  that  corrupt,  unscrupulous, 
and  designing  men  can  and  do  carry  into  effect 
many  unjust,  unbu sine ss -like  and  often  iniquitous 
policies.  A  bondholder  is  usually  more  an  owner 
than  a  preferred  stockholder,  and  the  latter  usually 
more  than  a  common  stockholder,  yet  usually  neither 
of  these  owners  can  vote.  Actual  ownership  in  the 
large  corporations  of  the  country  is  to-day  quite 
"  popular, "  i.  e.,  owners  in  fact  are  quite  numerous, 
but  CONTEOLLEES  in  fact  are  very  few.  Every 
security,  be  it  a  bond,  preferred  stock  or  common 
stock,  should  cast  one  vote  in  the  election  of  man- 
aging directors  of  a  company,  for  every  one  dollar 
per  year  on  the  hundred  that  it  receives  in  interest 
or  dividends.  Policy  holders  in  insurance  companies 
should  likewise  vote  in  all  companies  (as  they  do  in 
many)  on  an  equitable  basis.  If  there  be  no  inter- 
est or  dividends  paid,  then  the  prior  evidences  of 
ownership  alone  should  vote.  Though  it  would  en- 
tail some  additional  complication,  bonds  could  be 
issued  and  registered  the  same  as  stock,  and  be 
similarly  transferable. 


84  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

With  all  classes  of  ownership  thus  recognized,  vot- 
ing control  could  not  so  easily  become  autocratic, 
and  it  would  be  the  fault  of  a  majority  in  VALUE  if 
corrupt  combinations  were  made. 

Why  should  one  class  of  ownership,  and  that  the 
lowest  class,  be  the  actual  CONTROLLER?  If  they 
who  actually  own,  actually  control,  there  would  not 
only  be  no  need  for  the  paternal  guardianship  of  the 
GOVERNMENTAL  FETICH,  but  such  guardian- 
ship would  be  tantamount  to  impertinent  intermed- 
dling of  disinterested  intruders. 

There  should  be  ONE  NATIONAL  CORPORA- 
TION LAW,  with  which,  as  to  fundamental  powers 
and  restrictions,  the  state  laws  should  be  in  con- 
formity. The  fewer  the  restrictions  the  more  invit- 
ing the  investment.  Many  so-called  "  great  states- 
men "  entirely  overlook  the  reactionary  damage  that 
results  from  actionary  intermeddling.  Most  "  great 
statesmen  "  are  too  small  to  successfully  handle  mat- 
ters of  as  much  importance  as  the  industry  of  any 
country.  In  many  cases  the  common  stock,  which 
does  the  voting,  represents  no  investment  whatso- 
ever. In  this  respect  there  is  a  similarity  between 
Private  and  Governmental  corporations.  In  both, 
the  owners  should  vote  in  the  ratio  of  their  owner- 
ship. 

ORGANIZED  LABOR  TRUSTS 

Working  men  have  the  same  right  to  organize 
Labor  Trusts  that  Capitalists  have  to  organize  Com- 
mercial Trusts. 

No  trust  organization  can  be  more  beneficial  or 
praiseworthy  than  a  Labor  Trust  (which  all  union 
organizations  are)  provided  its  operations  are  law- 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          85 

ful ;  that  it  is  voluntarily  entered  into  by  its  mem- 
bers; and  provided,  furthermore,  that  it  is  made 
RESPONSIBLE  PECUNIARILY  as  well  as  per- 
sonally considered.  A  Labor  Trust  that  does  not 
possess  financial  or  pecuniary  responsibility  should 
be  treated  as  a  MOB,  and  dealt  with  by  the  strong 
arm  of  the  law  whenever  its  actions  interfere  with 
any  business. 

Its  members  should  be  obliged  to  contribute  to  its 
treasury  a  certain  sum  per  capita  so  as  to  provide 
said  pecuniary  responsibility;  and  this  fund  should 
be  invested  in  Government  Bonds  or  deposited  with 
some  responsible  institution  to  be  held  by  it  as  a 
guarantee  that  agreements  when  made  with  the 
Labor  Trust  or  Union  can  be  legally  enforced.  This 
fund  would  draw  interest  so  as  to  avoid  loss  to  the 
Labor  Trust,  but  it  should  be  subject  to  process,  the 
same  as  Real  Estate  or  any  other  value  by  whom- 
soever owned. 

The  trust  should  be  empowered  to  sue  and  be  sued 
as  are  all  Commercial  Trusts. 

Labor  trusts  can  become  the  most  obnoxious  of  all 
possible  monopolies ;  they  can,  if  so  disposed,  tie  up 
the  food  supply  of  a  city,  a  district  or  a  state,  and 
cause  untold  damage,  even  starvation  and  death  to 
people  and  destruction  to  property. 

If  they  were  financially  responsible,  that  damage 
could  in  some  degree  be  repaired  by  the  judgment  of 
a  Court,  and  liability  to  such  judgment  would  tend 
to  insure  proper  conduct  and  to  prevent  mob  out- 
lawry. No  law  or  statute  that  bears  on  Commercial 
Trusts  should  exempt  Labor  Trusts  from  its  pen- 
alties. 

Commercial  Trusts  are  financially  responsible, 
hence  justice  requires  that  Labor  Trusts  should  not 


86  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

be  execution  proof  or  in  any  way  protected  from  the 
operation  of  law. 

This  responsibility  would  give  to  labor  trusts  dig- 
nity and  character.  Agreements  could  be  enforced 
or  damages  obtained  for  non-compliance  therewith 
by  due  process  of  law. 

Labor  monopolies  must  be  destroyed  the  same  as 
^Capital  monopolies. 

Forcible  interference  with  non-union  endeavor  or 
opportunity  should  be  dealt  with  as  mob  violence  is 
dealt  with,  and  the  BOYCOTT  should  be  answerable 
to  Court  Injunction  if  necessary. 

AKBITKATION,  but  not  necessarily  binding  on 
either  party,  should  be  enforced  before  a  strike  is 
declared  operative  so  as  to  give  time  for  adjust- 
ment in  case  no  settlement  is  reached. 

PUBLICITY  OF  PEIVATE  BUSINESS. 

Publicity  of  private  business  should  not  be  en- 
forced except  by  Court  order  for  special  reasons. 
Public  scrutiny  into  the  same  should  be  confined  to 
confirmation,  if  questioned,  of  compliance  with  cor- 
porate rights  and  restrictions,  and  to  the  ascertain- 
ment of  GEOSS  OUTPUT  or  GROSS  RENTALS. 
In  other  respects  PRIVATE  BUSINESS  IS  NOT 
PUBLIC  BUSINESS.  But,  if  several  companies 
owned  by  the  same  men  should  combine  and  arbi- 
trarily advance  prices  or  curtail  production  (which 
they  could  not  do  unless  they  owned  a  complete 
monopoly)  then,  in  the  discretion  of  a  Court,  the 
"millionth  per  cent,  tax"  could  be  made  to  apply  to 
the  aggregate  output  of  all  the  companies  instead 
of  to  the  single  output  of  one  of  the  companies.  We 
must  use  our  Courts  and  Trust  our  Courts. 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          8? 


COEPOEATE  CAPITALIZATION  OE  "WATEE- 
ING  STOCKS. " 

Much  complaint  is  urged  against  what  is  termed 
"watering  stocks "  in  private  corporations.  The 
stocks  of  corporations,  as  has  been  stated,  are  only 
certificates  or  evidences  of  ownership  of  the  prop- 
erty of  the  corporation.  To  increase  or  decrease 
the  number  of  certificates  does  not  increase  or  de- 
crease the  resources  of  the  company.  If  the  shares 
pay  10  per  cent,  on  a  certain  issue,  and  5  per  cent, 
is  the  rate  in  the  community  at  which  investments 
thought  to  be  good  are  maintained  at  par,  the  ten- 
dency of  the  stock  on  a  10  per  cent,  basis  will  be  to 
sell  at  200.  If  the  issue  is  doubled  the  same  would 
tend  to  sell  at  100.  Twice  the  stock  at  half  the  price 
is  the  same  as  half  the  stock  at  twice  the  price. 

There  is  no  injustice  in  this.  The  buyer  must  be- 
ware. VOIDING  FEAUD  no  inherent  wrong  exists 
in  so-called  "watering  stocks. "  Against  FEAUD 
the  courts  provide  a  remedy ;  but  against  the  l '  gulli- 
bility of  the  public"  there  is  no  remedy  unless  it  be 
a  FOOL  KILLEE  or  a  WISDOM  CEEATOE. 
People  often  buy  stocks,  knowing  as  well  as  any- 
thing can  be  known  that  they  possess  nothing  but 
speculative  value ;  in  fact,  if  they  possessed  any  real 
value  nine-tenths  of  a  certain  class  of  investors 
would  not  touch  them.  If  the  business  of  the  Gov- 
ernment Fetichists  is  to  eradicate  the  speculative  in- 
stincts of  mankind  they  had  better  begin  by  teach- 
ing the  mothers  to  teach  their  children  the  folly  of 
that  habit  rather  than  to  try  to  control  it  by  inter- 
meddling with  the  private  business  of  corporations 
in  that  respect.  No  corporation  can  force  any  man 


88  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

or   woman   to    buy   their    stocks,    and,   VOIDING 
FBAUD,  they  have  a  just  right  to  sell  them. 

EICH  MEN  IN  SOCIETY. 

Man  and  his  true  place  in  nature  is  not  thoroughly 
understood  by  even  the  wisest  of  our  philosophers 
and  scarcely  conceived  at  all  by  ordinary  mortals. 
Most  people  think  that  men  were  created  by  the 
1  <  FIAT  of  OMNIPOTENCE  to  occupy  the  earth, 
and  the  earth  created  by  the  same  FIAT  to  be  occu- 
pied by  men. 

This  basic  or  fundamental  belief  leads  to  many 
misconceptions  in  all  the  affairs  of  life.  It  causes 
the  masses  to  think  that  their  natural  and  rightful 
inheritance  has  been  taken  away  from  them  by  the 
classes,  or,  rather,  by  the  rich,  when,  in  fact,  the 
rich  are  Custodians  and  Benefactors  until  they  be- 
come Monopolists,  which  under  Timocracy  is  impos- 
sible. The  expression  that  "Bich  men  are  the  tem- 
porary custodians  of  the  world 's  wealth"  is  taken 
from  the  writings  and  speeches  of  Mr.  Andrew  Car- 
negie. 

VANISHING  POINT  OF  CUSTODIANSHIP? 

Will  there  ever  come  a  time  when  men  will  cease 
to  try  to  accumulate  wealth  beyond  the  possible 
needs  of  themselves  and  their  dependants?  It  is 
sincerely  to  be  hoped  that  such  time  will  never  come, 
because  it  will  mean  the  diminution  of  accumulation. 
At  the  present  time,  in  rich  communities  the  reward 
of  an  accumulator  for  the  valuable  service  of  custo- 
dianship is  only  about  $4.00  per  hundred  per  year. 
It  is  evident  that,  if  wealth  should  continue  to  ac- 
cumlate;  that  if  population  and  the  desires  of  the 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          89 

people  for  a  higher  standard  of  living  should  not 
increase,  the  amount  of  wealth  per  capita  would  be- 
come so  great  that  the  reward  for  custodianship 
would  be  reduced  to  less  than  $4.00  per  hundred 
per  year,  or  possibly  to  such  a  low  rate  of  compen- 
sation ($2.00,  or  even  $1.00,  per  hundred  per  year) 
that  custodians  would  have  no  inducement  to  con- 
tinue their  valuable  services  to  the  community.  In 
this  event,  accumulation  would  diminish  and  its  con- 
sequent ill-effects  would  follow.  It  is  probable,  how- 
ever, or  at  least  it  is  sincerely  to  be  hoped,  that  con- 
tinuously increasing  strife  for  higher  standard  of 
living  will  perpetuate  a  sufficiently  high  reward  for 
the  use  of  wealth,  to  stimulate  accumulators  to  con- 
tinue their  beneficent  service,  and  their  all-impor- 
tant custodianship  of  the  wealth  of  the  world.  It  is 
certainly  true  that,  as  wealth  per  capita  increases, 
either  the  people  at  large  will  get  the  same  standard 
of  living  at  a  lower  price  or  a  higher  standard  at 
the  same  price,  which  forces  the  conclusion  that  in- 
creased accumulation  is  the  all-important  desidera- 
tum even  though  privately  owned,  if  not  privately 
and  ostentatiously  used  and  absorbed.  The  conclu- 
sion is  just  as  obvious  that  more  accumulation  will 
result  from  private  thrift  than  from  public  waste, 
which  again  forces  the  conclusion  that  the  means  of 
production  and  distribution  should  be  privately 
(and  in  one  sense  publicly)  owned,  operated  and  con- 
trolled. Voluntary  benefactors  from  private  custo- 
dians in  1909  were  over  150  million,  and  in  10  or  12 
years  previous  were  about  one  billion,  which  is  prob- 
ably more  than  will  ever  be  saved  to  society  by  the 
Governmental  Fetich,  which  destroys  the  assured 
blessings  of  Individualism  and  assures  none  of  the 
supposed  blessings  of  socialism. 


90  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 


SAVING  AND  SPENDING. 

In  order  to  possess  society  must  produce;  in  order 
to  accumulate,  it  must  save.  Spending,  as  society  is 
organized,  is  equivalent  to  consuming.  It  is  really 
but  an  exchange,  but  the  exchanged  products  are 
usually  consumed.  Again,  for  the  purposes  of 
clearer  understanding,  let  complexity  be  reduced  to 
simplicity.  If  but  one  man  existed  on  the  earth,  he 
would  be  obliged  to  produce,  that  is,  to  convert  into 
utilizable  forms,  the  crude  material  that  he  pos- 
sessed. In  social  aggregations,  division  of  labor  and 
differentiation  of  function  cause  each  man  to  pro- 
duce a  few  or  perhaps  only  one  thing  or  a  part  of  a 
thing,  and,  by  exchanging  it  for  the  products  of 
others,  provide  for  his  current  wants.  It  is  cur- 
rently believed  that  men  should  spend,  that  is,  con- 
sume, in  order  to  create  a  demand  for  and  supply 
work  to  their  fellow  men.  If  this  idea  is  sound  in 
social  aggregations  of  men,  it  must  likewise  be  so 
as  to  a  single  man,  which  is  to  say  that  a  man  must 
consume  in  order  to  provide  an  opportunity  for 
himself  to  work.  The  wise  course  for  one  man  to 
pursue  is  to  produce  what  he  can  produce,  consume 
as  much  or  little  as  his  desires  and  appetites  sug- 
gest, and  to  accumulate  or  save  as  much  as  he  can 
consistently  with  his  appetites  and  desires,  because 
there  will  come  times  in  most  earthly  climates  when 
he  cannot  produce  at  all,  but  as  long  as  he  lives  there 
will  never  come  a  time  when  he  cannot  consume  or 
spend.  If  this  is  true  of  one  man,  then  it  is  true  of 
all  men.  When  we  strike  a  balance  between  produc- 
tion and  saving  and  consumption  or  spending,  the 
advantageous  resultant  must  be  on  the  one  side  or 


4  TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          91 

the  other — it  cannot  be  on  both.  Then  aside  from 
what  men  must  produce  and  spend  in  order  to  live, 
their  best  conditions  are  subserved  either  by  more 
saving  or  by  more  spending — which?  By  saving,  so- 
ciety accumulates  and  can  surround  its  members 
with  currently  increasing  comforts.  By  spending, 
it  cannot  accumulate,  hence  cannot  insure  additional 
comforts.  Unless,  therefore,  it  is  a  wise  policy  for 
one  man  to  consume  in  order  to  give  work  to  him- 
self, it  is  not  a  wise  policy  for  him  to  spend  in  order 
to  create  demand  for  and  give  work  to  his  fellow 
men.  A  man  should  spend  with  reference  to  his 
own  production,  and  he  is  the  wisest  and  he  does 
society  the  most  good  who  accumulates,  for  his  own 
comfort  primarily,  and  for  the  comfort  of  all  men 
secondarily ;  and  he  is  least  wise  and  he  does  society 
least  good  who  spends  in  order  to  provide  work  for 
his  fellows.  If  all  men  would  accumulate,  no  man 
would  need  the  unwise  expenditures  of  other  men 
in  order  that  they  might  be  provided  with  work. 

PLUTOCRATIC  OSTENTATION  AND 
HAUTEUR. 

The  most  stupid  of  all  plutocratic  performances  is 
the  superciliousness  and  ostentation  exercised  by 
"the  pig  parvenue,"  as  he  has  often  been  called. 
"Three  generations  to  breed  a  gentleman "  is  in 
most  cases  a  truism.  Ostentatious  expenditure 
stimulates  the  production  of  useless  and  evanescent 
forms.  It  also  tends  to  intensify  the  extreme  of 
living  conditions,  and  consequently  provokes  ani- 
mosity that  Would  not  otherwise  exist. 

The  error  that  lavish  expenditure  by  the  rich  bene- 
fits the  poor  by  circulating  money  should  be  dissi- 
pated in  the  minds  of  the  people.  One  dollar  in- 


92  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

vested  in  useful  and  durable  things  is  worth,  TO 
THE  PEOPLE,  many  dollars  invested  in  useless 
and  perishable  things.  Just  as  the  expenditure  of 
wealth  taken  by  governments  in  taxation,  for  battle- 
ships, forts,  arsenals  and  the  like ;  and  just  as  ex- 
penditures for  costly  cathedrals,  towers,  pyramids 
and  the  like,  are  wasteful,  so  ostentatious  expendi- 
tures by  plutocratic  parvenues  are  wasteful.  A  plu- 
tocrat is  but  a  CUSTODIAN  of  wealth  that  has  been 
produced  by  the  people.  When  a  custodian  is  ex- 
travagant and  wasteful,  his  occupation  should  termi- 
nate. 

'  *  It  is  my  money, ' '  says  the  parvenue,  '  i  and  I  will 
do  with  it  as  I  please."  Not  if  the  people  exercise 
their  power,  as  they  will  some  day  do,  will  you  "do 
with  it  as  you  please. " 

The  argument  that  wealth  production  is  a  low  and 
groveling  aspiration,  is,  however,  an  error  also,  and 
it  is  yet  a  greater  error  to  anathematize  the  wealth 
accumulator  who  invests  his  accumulations  produc- 
tively. Civilization  cannot  advance  unless  crude  ma- 
terial is  converted  into  utilizable  forms,  from  which 
it  follows  that  these  forms  must  be  accumulated  and 
conserved.  The  justification  for  private  ownership 
over  public  ownership  (millionism  over  socialism) 
lies  in  the  belief,  which  is  practically  a  demonstra- 
tion, that  accumulation  will  be  greater,  hence  that 
the  living  of  all  will  be  higher  and  better.  When 
people  cease  to  worship  the  Governmental  Fetich  it 
will  be  deemed  far  more  honorable  to  be  president 
of  an  industrial  establishment  that  produces  and  ac- 
cumulates millions  of  dollars  per  year  than  to  be 
President  of  the  United  States  governmental  estab- 
lishment that  consumes  or  wastes  millions  of  dollars 
per  year. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Taxation — Its  Function :  Levied  On  Property  Di- 
rect: Reasons  Therefor:  Equitable  Relativity  In 
Assessments:  Taxation  For  Protection:  Cumula- 
tive Tax  On  Private  Estates  And  Monopoly:  The 
Geocratic  Position:  Its  Objectionable  Features: 
General  Rights  Of  Condemnation:  Difficulty  Of 
Changes:  Inheritance  vs.  Income  Taxes:  Tolls  vs. 
Taxes :  Pauperizing  Taxes :  Church  Property  And 
Taxation:  Valuation  For  Taxation:  Taxation 
Breeds  Revolution:  Death  And  Taxes:  Taxation 
One-Third  Of  Labor  Product:  Cumulative  Tax 
Briefly  Outlined. 

I 

PROPOSITION  SECOND. 

That  all  taxation  should  be  for  revenue  only,  and 
be  collected  from  Real  Estate  and  other  fixed  prop- 
erty and  franchises  only,  with  an  additional  cumula- 
tive levy  on  private  parks,  private  castles,  private 
residences,  private  preserves  and  the  like,  above  cer- 
tain valuation,  occupied,  rented,  or  held  exclusively 
for  private  enjoyment,  occupancy  and  use. 

Under  a  well-adjusted  social  status  taxation  has 
but  one  justifiable  function,  viz. :  the  procurement  of 
wealth  with  which  to  support  institutions  which  are 
required  by  society  and  which  cannot  be  practically 
self-supporting.  Under  the  same  social  status  there 

93 


94  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

is  but  one  justifiable  source  from  which  said  wealth 
should  be  derived,  viz.:  from  fixed  property  equit- 
ably and  relatively  assessed.  Under  formative  or 
developing  social  conditions,  owing  to  the  multitu- 
dinous agencies  that  prompt  human  action,  there  are 
times  when  it  appears  reasonable  to  attempt  by 
taxation  the  business  of  regulation.  There  is -but 
one  such  regulation  that  is  not  ipso  facto,  discrimi- 
nating and  unjust,  viz. :  that  of  preventing  the  per- 
nicious abuse  of  private  ownership,  which  is  monop- 
oly. As  applied  to  anything  but  fixed  property, 
revenue,  source  and  regulation  must  always  be  mat- 
ters of  doubt  and  discrimination.  The  basis  of  all 
government  is  property,  therefore  property  should 
support  government.  There  is  no  property  but  utili- 
ties. Evidence  of  ownership  in  utilities  (stocks, 
bonds  and  the  like)  are  not  property.  Taxation, 
therefore,  should  be  levied  on  property  and  not  on 
evidences  of  ownership  in  property.  Most  prop- 
erty is  fixed  property,  movables  represent  only  a 
small  percentage  thereof.  Most  of  the  value  of  a 
railway  is  in  its  roadbed,  bridges,  station  houses, 
depots,  and  franchises.  All  of  these  are  fixed  prop- 
erty. Most  of  the  value  of  a  factory  is  in  its  land, 
buildings,  machinery,  and  their  incidental  belong- 
ings. The  reason,  therefore,  for  taxing  only  fixed 
property  are  the  following: 

1st.     Most  property  is  fixed  property. 

2d.  All  fixed  property  is  ascertainable  and  can- 
not be  secreted  or  moved. 

3d.  It  avoids  double  taxation  which  is  always  un- 
just, and  since  there  is  no  practical  way  of  justly 
taxing  so-called  personal  property  the  burden  falls 
unjustly  on  that  which  is  taxed,  and,  being  an  injus- 
tice it  should  not  be  imposed.  If  all  personalty 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCEACY          95 

could  be  taxed,  interest  rates  would  average  higher, 
and  the  borrower  (who  is  vastly  in  the  majority) 
would  lose  more  than  the  community  would  gain. 
If  personalty  is  not  taxed  it  seeks  investment  which 
reduces  interest  rates  and  the  borrower  gains  more 
than  the  community  would  lose.  These  facts,  to- 
gether with  the  absolute  impossibility  of  assessing 
it  justly,  more  than  compensate  for  its  total  ex- 
emption. 

4th.  By  taxation  on  fixed  property  alone  can  a 
citizen's  exact  contribution  to,  hence  his  rightful 
ownership  in  a  government  corporation  be  ascer- 
tained. 

5th.  The  exact  rate  and  burden  would  always  be 
known,  which  would  constantly  tend  toward  economy 
in  expenditure.  Much  extravagance  is  made  possible 
by  the  INSIDIOUS  operation  of  all  INDIEECT 
systems,  which  are  none  the  less  oppressive  because 
of  being  temporarily  shifted.  To  secure  revenue  by 
evasive  methods  is  almost  the  same  as  THEFT.  "By 
Heaven !  I  had  rather  COIN  my  heart,  and  drop  my 
blood  for  drachmas,  than  to  wring  vile  trash  by  any 
INDIEECTION." 

6th.  Fixed  Property  can  be  valued  for  taxation 
with  reasonable  accuracy  at  all  times  and  in  all 
places. 

7th.  Taxes  would  be  levied  and  collected  in  the 
locality  to  which  the  revenue  is  to  be  applied,  and  no 
tax  that  is  too  oppressive  for  FIXED  property  to 
comfortably  bear  should  ever  be  imposed  in  any  lo- 
cality. 

Neither  of  these  reasons  applies  to  movable  prop- 
erty, and  since  movables  represent  in  the  main  tran- 
sient and  perishable  effects,  and  since  they  can  be 
and  always  will  be  secreted  or  greatly  undervalued, 


96  MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

for  convenience  and  justice  to  those  who  tell  the 
truth,  all  of  this  class  (movables)  should  be  exempt 
from  taxation. 

Stocks  and  Bonds  are  simply  evidence  of  owner- 
ship in  property,  most  of  which  is  fixed. 

The  Corporation  issuing  these  evidences  of  own- 
ership, as  such,  in  its  individual  capacity,  should 
pay  the  tax.  Its  valuation  should  be  that  of  its 
total  evidences  of  ownership,  excluding  such  mov- 
ables as  are  rightfully  exempt. 

A  street  car  plant  in  a  city  is  usually  worth  more 
than  the  value  of  its  tracks,  buildings,  machinery, 
barns,  and  movables. 

All  value  therefore,  in  excess  of  these  totals  repre- 
sents its  FEANCHISE  VALUE.  By  taxing  its  evi- 
dences of  ownership,  or  rather  the  VALUE  of  these, 
less  its  movables,  justice  will  have  been  done. 

The  value  of  any  property  depends  largely  on  the 
efficiency  of  its  management.  There  is,  however,  no 
reason  why  the  valuation  for  taxation  should  not  be 
that  for  which  the  total  of  its  stocks  and  bonds  cur- 
rently sell  less  whatever  is  exempted  to  all  owners. 
All  that  is  desired  is  EQUITABLE  EELATIVITY. 

It  matters  not  whether  the  basis  is  one  half,  one 
third  or  total,  provided  all  pay  the  same  and  at  fair 
relative  valuations. 

The  greatest  injustice  with  which  society  is  cursed 
is  the  favoritism  shown  by  assessors  in  listing  the 
property  of  large  corporations.  Not  one  in  ten  pay 
anything  like  what  they  should  pay,  which  is  a  crime 
almost  as  infamous  as  theft.  In  the  city  of  CIN- 
CINNATI OHIO  in  1907  the  Gas  and  Electric  Com- 
pany was  assessed  at  only  $4,473,610  dollars  (about 
one  tenth  of  its  value.  Its  securities  readily  sold  on  a 
basis  of  56  million.  It  is  the  same  elsewhere.  If 


TIMOCBACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY          97 

these  properties  were  fairly  assessed  then,  be  the 
rates  what  they  may,  the  contribution  will  be  equit- 
able. Taxation  on  fixed  property  alone  is  justifiable 
for  the  reason  that  on  it  alone  can  equitable  relativ- 
ity be  assured. 

PROTECTIVE  TARIFFS. 

Tariffs  for  protection  with  incidental  revenue 
should  never  be  imposed.  This  appears  to  be  a  dog- 
matic assertion,  but  it  is  not  such.  In  the  develop- 
ing condition  of  a  nation,  for  the  purpose  of  secur- 
ing diversification  of  industry  and  so  called  national 
independence  sooner  than  they  would  otherwise  be 
secured,  the  government  might  be  justified  is  using 
a  part  of  the  revenue  that  it  derived  from  fixed  pro- 
perty to  encourage  for  a  time  certain  kinds  of  do- 
mestic production.  This  could  only  be  justified, 
however,  when  the  conditions  are  very  extraordin- 
ary and  the  urgency  very  great,  which  is  of  course 
indefinite.  When  such  encouragement  is  given  it 
should  be  by  the  payment  of  direct  bounties  and  not 
by  taxing  importations.  To  tax  the  importation  of 
the  products  of  foreign  labor  for  the  purpose  of  pro- 
tecting domestic  labor  and  at  the  same  time  encour- 
age the  importation  of  the  foreign  labor  itself  is 
like  quarantining  against  pestilence  and  inviting 
the  germs.  Neither  bounties  nor  the  so-called  pro- 
tective system  is  justifiable  in  the  United  States 
of  America  at  the  present  time  when  the 
products  of  our  infant  industries  are  sold  to 
foreign  consumers  cheaper  than  to  domestic 
consumers.  Revenue  by  imposts  will  doubt- 
less for  some  time  be  necessary  for  the  reason 
that  it  will  require  time  for  the  people  to  under- 


98  MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

stand  that  direct  taxes  are  less  oppressive  than  in- 
direct taxes,  because,  their  payment  being  directly 
felt,  tends  toward  economy  in  expenditure,  hence  to 
the  need  for  less  taxation.  No,  say  some  reformers, 
we  must  spend  all  that  we  possibly  can  so  as  to  make 
business  good  and  times  lively ;  and  we  must  secure 
the  means  by  the  most  indirect,  insidious  and  sur- 
reptitious methods  that  we  can  possibly  devise,  so 
that  the  tax  payers  will  not  so  keenly  feel  the  bur- 
den, hence  will  not  so  quickly  protest  against  the 
folly  and  injustice. 

The  government  through  its  financial  department 
and  in  connection  with  local  authorities,  should  at 
certain  intervals  assess  the  value  of  fixed  property 
on  an  absolutely  equitable  and  relative  basis,  and 
keep  said  assessments  always  open  to  public  scru- 
tiny. Then,  on  this  value  the  rate  should  be  im- 
posed, to  apply  first  to  the  city,  where  it  is  now  thor- 
oughly practical,  and  in  time  to  the  state  and  nation. 

All  other  taxes  should  be  abolished  as  soon  as  it  is 
practicable. 

THE  CUMULATIVE  ANTI-MONOPOLY  TAX. 

The  cumulative  tax  rates  proposed  herein  are  the 
only  radical  features  of  this  work.  They  are  not 
aimed  at  the  ownership  of  private  property,  but  at 
the  ownership  of  private  MONOPOLY. 

When  no  man  or  woman  owning  less  than  25  mil- 
lion dollars  can  be  affected  otherwise  than  benefi- 
cially (that  is  relieved  of  taxation)  the  plan  cannot 
be  called  AGRARIAN  or  an  attack  on  property 
rights.  The  PARTICULAE  KATES  named  are  no 
essential  feature  of  the  proposition,  and  are  chosen 
only  because  they  are  regarded  as  a  FAIR  approach 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCEACY          99 

toward  that  desideratum  which  will  extirpate  pres- 
ent and  prevent  future  monopoly,  and  at  the  same 
time  prevent  the  diminution  of  accumulating  wealth. 
If  not  drastic  enough  for  the  former  they  must  be 
increased,  and  if  too  drastic  for  the  latter  they  must 
be  reduced.  The  establishment  of  the  correctness  of 
the  principle  is  all  that  is  now  desired  by  Timocracy, 
leaving  the  AEITHMETIC  of  the  proposition  to  be 
determined  later  on. 

The  principles  are  as  follows: 

1st.  That  all  monopoly  is  in  conflict  with  the 
rights  of  men  because  it  empowers  a  few  to  exact 
TEIBUTE  OE  TAX  from  the  many. 

2nd.     That  free  men  cannot  tolerate  TEIBUTE     ( 
OE  TAX  except  that  which  they  VOLUNTAEILY 
impose  on  themselves. 

3rd.  That  PEIVATE  monopoly  is  "TAXA- 
TION WITHOUT  EEPEESENTATION,  and  hence 
violates  the  principles  for  which  our  ancestors 
fought. 

4th.  That  prices  should  be  regulated  by  the  laws 
of  trade  and  not  by  MONOPOLY  supported  by  BU- 
EEAUCEACY. 

5th.  That  MONOPOLY  is  not  necessary  to  pro- 
vide adequate  reward  for  individual  excellence  or  to 
prompt  individual  enterprise. 

6th.  That  competition  can  never  be  "EUIN- 
OUS"  to  the  BEST,  and,  that,  if  the  worst  are  to 
be  " protected"  COOPEEATION  or  SOCIALISM 
is  the  remedy. 

7th.  That  SOCIALISM,  because  it  proposes  pro- 
tection to  the  WOEST,  will  result  in  retrogression 
and  finally  in  barbarism. 

Industrial  enterprises  can  be  monopolized  by 
TEUST  CONSOLIDATIONS  that  are  permitted  to 


100          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

expand  beyond  the  limit  which  assures  the  greatest 
facility  in  operation  and  greatest  economy  in  pro- 
duction, but,  that,  to  said  limit  (for  which  Timocracy 
suggests  an  automatic  regulator)  TEUSTS  should 
not  only  be  permitted,  but  ENCOUEAGED. 

Eeal  Estate  or  free  hold  property  can  be  monopo- 
lized by  permitting  too  great  a  value  thereof  to  be 
held  or  owned  by  any  one  individual  or  corporation. 
To  prevent  this  Timocracy  suggests  the  same  auto- 
matic regulator  as  in  the  case  of  industries. 

A  more  objectionable  form  of  EEAL  ESTATE 
monopoly  than  the  ownership  of  business  properties 
is  the  holding  for  private  use,  occupancy  and  pleas- 
ure of  costly  PEIVATE  EESIDENCES,  PAEKS, 
PEESEEVES  and  the  like.  Against  this  Tim- 
ocracy suggests  a  more  DEASTIC  cumulative  rate. 
Just  here  come  in  the  GEOCEATS  and  propose 
practical  confiscation  for  UNUSED  NATUEAL 
OPPOETUNITY,  or  rather  that  it  be  taxed  to  rental 
value.  There  are  not  many  NATUEAL  SITES 
or  CITY  LOTS  held  by  capitalists  where  they  would 
not  gladly,  under  proper  conditions,  open  them  out 
for  use  to  any  suitable  occupant,  or  for  sale  at  com- 
mercial rates.  Few  capitalists  enjoy  paying  taxes 
and  getting  no  revenue,  and  where  a  vacant  lot,  for- 
est or  mine  is,  for  any  length  of  time,  held  vacant, 
idle,  and  unproductive  it  is  usually  because  of  rea- 
sons which  at  the  time  would  not  in  their  opinion 
justify  improvement  or  operation,  or  because  of 
conditions  unknown  to  the  outsider  which  render 
the  same  impracticable  from  a  business  standpoint. 
But  there  are  occasional  exceptions  to  this  general 
disposition,  and  just  here  lies  the  "soul  of  truth " 
in  geogracy. 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMCt!:X^i^  ! A 


GENEEAL  EIGHTS  OF  CONDEMNATION. 

There  are  cases  where  valuable  city  building  sites 
are  held  vacant  because  the  owner  is  not  wise  enough 
to  improve,  or  to  sell  to  those  who  are  wise  enough, 
at  a  reasonable  price.  The  same  is  sometimes, 
though  not  often,  true  as  to  mines,  meadows  and 
forests.  Of  course  these  cases  work  harm  to  the 
owner  by  causing  him  to  pay  taxes  without  deriving 
any  revenue,  and  also  to  the  community  by  prevent- 
ing it  from  receiving  the  benefit  of  improvements 
that  another  owner,  if  the  site  could  be  procured 
at  a  fair  price,  would  construct,  or  of  the  products 
of  a  mine,  meadow  or  forests  that  a  more  progres- 
sive owner  might  develop  and  operate.  This  sug- 
gests the  idea  of  general ' '  rights  of  condemnation. ' ' 
It  is  deemed  to  be  for  the  general  good  that  certain 
corporations  be  granted  rights  of  condemnation  so 
that,  by  unreasonableness  or  caprice  upon  the  part 
of  an  individual  owner,  the  progress  of  enterprise 
may  not  be  thwarted.  Should  this  apply  to  citizens 
generally?  On  the  one  hand  it  would  tend  to  pre- 
vent speculative  holdings  out  of  use,  and  on  the 
other,  it  would  interfere  with  individual  right.  The 
surface  of  the  earth  is  limited.  There  are  no  more 
Americas  to  be  discovered.  The  Arctic  and  Ant- 
arctic zones  are  now  and  perhaps  ever  will,  for  prac- 
tical purposes,  be  "locked  in  thrilling  regions  of 
thick-ribbed  ice."  On  the  whole  about  three-fourths 
of  the  earth 's  surface  water  and  about  three-fourths 
the  remaining  fourth  is  practically  uninhabitable, 
leaving  only  about  one  sixteenth  fairly  open  to  hu- 
man activity  on  a  good  life  sustaining  basis.  It  is 
not  difficult  to  imagine  that  a  few  generations  hence 


VS.  SOCIALISM 


the  question  of  access  to  the  use  of  the  earth  may 
be  a  very  important  one.  Be  this  even  so,  neverthe- 
less, justice  demands  that,  when  property  is  con- 
demned, a  fair  price  shall  be  paid.  Usually  a  high 
price  is  paid,  because  of  the  sympathy  of  courts 
and  jurors  with  the  people  and  versus  the  corpora- 
tions. If  rights  of  condemnation  were  universal  the 
sympathy  might  be  on  the  other  side.  If  our  courts 
were  what  they  ought  to  be  (which  will  never  be 
the  case  under  democratic-republican  so-called  elec- 
tion, but  really  boss  oligarchic  actual  selection) 
many  issues  would  voluntarily  be  committed  to  their 
determination  that  cannot  now  be  safely  so  commit- 
ted. Even  under  the  most  perfect  human  system  in 
justice  would  occasionally  be  inflicted.  However,  if 
the  rights  of  general  condemnation  could  be  pro- 
perly safeguarded,  it  might  be  safe  to  establish  it, 
on  condition  that  if  an  owner  refuse  to  accept  the 
price  named  by  a  competent  jury,  and  persisted  in 
refusing  access  to  or  the  use  of  his  property,  said 
property  thereafter  be  subjected  to  the  cumulative 
rate.  But,  as  things  now  are,  many  abuses  would 
creep  in,  and,  in  the  nature  of  things,  many  ques- 
tions would  arise.  Poor  improvements  on  good  pro- 
perty called  for  betterments  more  than  no  improve- 
ments on  poor  property,  so  that  when  a  man  or  set 
of  men  wish  to  buy  any  property,  a  pretext  for  con- 
demnation could  be  found.  This  would  make  the 
conditions  of  ownership  doubtful  and  tend  to  dis- 
courage investment.  The  preponderance  of  good  or 
ill  in  this  is  difficult  to  determine,  but  be  it  as  the 
future  may  demonstrate  to  be  wisest,  nevertheless, 
certain  it  is  that  the  Geocratic  position,  modified  to 
the  extent  of  the  cumulative  rate  instead  of  "taxa- 
tion to  rental  value, ' '  and  to  the  extent  of  its  impo- 


TIMOCRACY   VS. 


sit  ion  only  by  order  of  Court  after  an  offer  that  is 
deemed  reasonable  for  purchase  or  lease  for  im- 
provement and  use  has  been  refused,  would  not  be 
unjust  nor  confiscatory  to  owners,  yet  would  result 
in  great  good  to  the  community  at  large.  These 
properties,  however,  could  not  justly  be  UNCONDI- 
TIONALLY subjected  to  the  said  rate,  as  private 
residential  holdings  can  justly  be,  for  the  reason 
that  improvement  and  use  is  not  always  practicable 
from  a  business  standpoint,  and  to  force  improve- 
ment ahead  of  time  would  result  in  disuse  or  un- 
profitable use  of  said  improved  property,  and  thus 
entail  loss. 

The  proposition  of  Geocrats  that  to  tax  improved 
fixed  property  is  to  place  an  incubus  upon  and  to 
deter  the  transformation  of  crude  media  into  it,  is 
likewise  untenable.  To  exempt  the  improvements 
because,  forsooth,  the  owner  might  not  build  them 
if  taxed  is  to  lose  sight  of  EQUITABLE  ADJUST- 
MENT. All  men  paying  tax  on  what  they  own 
(fixed  property)  works  no  injury  on  any  man  in 
particular,  because  compensation  for  use  (rents  and 
the  price  of  products)  are  adjusted  to  that  basis. 

THE  DIFFICULTY  OF  CHANGES. 

The  greatest  difficulty  in  bringing  about  any 
change  or  social  reformation  results  from  aversion 
to  innovation  and  to  the  fact  that  it  often  works 
injustice  to  some  people.  Some  people  now  own 
personalty,  some  now  own  realty.  Both  personalty 
and  realty  are  now  subject  to  taxation,  but  the  for- 
mer usually  escapes  assessment,  as  it  always  will 
and  always  should.  However,  the  change  from  the 
present  so-called  system  of  taxing  personalty  and 


104         MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

incomes  to  a  system  of  taxing  only  fixed  property 
and  Inheritances  would  work  no  injustice  of  conse- 
quence if  due  compensation  is  made. 

Compensation  can  be  made  and  even-handed  jus- 
tice can  be  vouchsafed,  but  the  doing  thereof  in- 
volves some  time  and  adjustment,  but  no  injustice. 
Incomes  and  personalty  have  evaded  taxation  so 
long  and  so  universally  that  an  adjustment  has  been 
made  to  that  evasion ;  hence  to  exempt  them  entirely 
would  not  appreciably  increase  the  burden  on  fixed 
property,  and  to  the  small  extent  that  it  might  do 
so,  the  INHEEITANCE  TAX  proposed  herein, 
which  could  not  be  seriously  evaded,  would  be  ample 
recompense. 

INHERITANCE  VS.  INCOME  TAXES. 

The  compensation  that  is  suggested  for  the  re- 
moval of  all  taxation  from  personalty  and  incomes 
is  a  National  INHEEITANCE  TAX. 

THE  Abolition  of  DUTIES  is  a  remote  desidera- 
tum, but  none  the  less  to  be  recommended.  The  in- 
heritance tax  should  be  made  CUMULATIVE  the 
same  as  is  proposed  to  be  levied  on  Industries  or  on 
Rents  and  on  all  property  that  is  privately  used  and 
non-productively  invested.  On  general  principles, 
however,  no  property  that  is  productively  invested 
and  not  monopolized  should  be  cumulatively  taxed, 
because  such  taxation  tends  to  diminish  accumula- 
tion more  rapidly  than  specific  levies  do. 

Much  wealth  is  absolutely  squandered  by  super- 
abundantly rich  people  in  various  forms  of  useless, 
foolish  and  luxurious  living  which  also  tends  to  re- 
duce accumulation.  Other  than  on  the  fixed  proper- 
ties hereinbefore  named  this  extravagance  and  lux- 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY         105 

uriousness  cannot  be  checked.  A  graduated  inheri- 
tance tax  would  appropriate  to  the  government  a 
fund  such  as  would  tend  largely  to  check  this  extrav- 
agance, and  to  relieve  from  taxation  people  who  are 
more  frugal.  It  could,  of  course,  be  evaded  by  the 
distribution  of  estates  during  the  lives  of  their  pos- 
sessors unless  some  restrictive  measures  were  in- 
troduced ;  but  such  distribution  would  not  often  nor 
seriously  occur.  It  could  also  be  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent evaded  by  secretiveness  and  under-valuation, 
but  less  so  than  an  INCOME  TAX,  as  inheritance 
taxes  would  be  paid  but  once  in  a  generation  and 
Executors  and  Administrators  could  be  closely  scru- 
tinized. With  an  inheritance  tax  in  force  an  income 
tax  would  be  useless  as  all  estates  are  the  result 
of  income,  hence  an  inheritance  tax  is  an  income 
tax.  The  revenue  to  the  government  would  be  about 
as  constant  as  from  incomes  because  owners  would 
die  from  year  to  year,  and  a  fixed  rate  on  inheri- 
tances paid  but  once  would  be  the  same  as  a  corre- 
sponding rate  on  incomes  collected  annually. 

The  inheritance  tax  rate  might  be  ON  EACH 
ONE  HUNDRED  DOLLARS  INHERITED  THE 
ONE  MILLIONTH  PART  OF  THE  TOTAL  IN- 
HERITANCE. If  this  would  be  so  drastic  as  to 
reduce  accumulation  notwithstanding  the  saving 
that  would  be  realized  by  the  abolition  of  annual 
taxes  on  personalty  and  from  the  tendency  to  dis- 
courage luxurious  and  ostentatious  living,  it  could 
be  reduced  as  the  conditions  might  warrant,  with 
due  reference  to  maintaining  intact  INCREASED 
ACCUMULATION,  which  must  go  on  faster  than 
population  increases  if  the  living  condition  of  the 
people  is  to  be  currently  improved.  In  these  days 
of  machinery  and  combinations,  both  of  which  must 


106          MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

increase,  it  is  possible  that  individual  estates  may 
become  so  colossal  as  to  be  unwieldly  and  to  offset 
the  benefits  resulting  from  private  custodianship 
and  accumulation.  An  inheritance  tax  need  not 
apply  to  values  less  than  one  Million. 

TOLLS  VS.  TAXES 

or 
PAUPERIZING  TAXATION. 

But  few  people  appreciate  the  fact  that  practic- 
ally all  taxes  primarily  paid  by  the  rich,  or  property 
holders,  are  shifted  on  to  the  poor,  or  the  users  or 
consumers.  This  is  not  an  injustice  but  is  so  from 
the  very  nature  of  things,  viz.,  that  the  user  and 
consumer  must  be  the  ultimate  contributor.  But 
few  people  appreciate  the  fact  that  whenever  they 
abolish  tolls  they  create  taxes,  and  that  the  taxes 
so  created  are  usually  much  greater  than  the  tolls 
they  abolish.  But  few  people  appreciate  the  fact 
that  the  so-called  FEEE  highways,  FREE  bridges, 
FEEE  schools,  etc.,  that  they  think  they  enjoy,  are, 
in  fact  very  high  TOLL  highways,  TOLL  bridges, 
TOLL  schools,  etc.  Because,  however,  the  TOLL  is 
a  tax  and  often  indirect  they  think  they  are  avoiding 
it  altogether  or  that  it  is  being  paid  by  the  rich. 
The  budget  for  New  York  City  for  the  year  1909 
was  about  $160,000,000 — and  has  since  increased. 
The  population  that  year  was,  in  round  numbers, 
four  million,  so  that  every  man,  woman,  and  child 
paid  about  $42  for  the  pleasure  and  privilege  of 
BEING  GOVERNED  by  the  municipal  and  State 
oligarchy  alone.  The  average  family  of  5  or  6 
therefore,  paid  about  $225  dollars  for  this  privilege. 
All  of  this  came  from  the  products  of  labor.  To 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY        107 

this  must  be  added  the  cost  of  the  NATIONAL  OLI- 
GARCHY, amounting  to  almost  one  billion  dollars 
more.  The  total  per  year,  therefore,  was  about  $75 
more,  or,  in  all  about  300  dollars  per  year.  The 
average  earning  capacity  of  a  city  family  is  scarcely 
$900  dollars  per  year,  hence  about  one  third  of  all 
labor  product  was  absorbed  in  taxation,  and  thus 
taken  away  from  the  living  standard  of  the  people. 
It  is  the  same  as  though  one  pair  of  shoes  out  of 
every  three,  or  one  house  out  of  every  three  was 
burned  as  soon  as  created  because  such  expenditure 
leaves  practically  no  inventoriable  assets  to  repre- 
sent it.  Does  not  this  create  a  demand  for  more 
shoes,  and  for  more  houses,  thus  creating  a  demand 
for  more  labor?  say  our  average  philosopher.  Yes, 
and  if  we  should  burn  all  the  shoes  and  all  the 
houses  we  create,  that  would  create  a  still  greater  de- 
mand, and  hence  we  would  soon  all  be  rich.  These 
enormous  tax  property  destroying  agencies  are 
among  the  chief  causes  of  low  living  standards  or, 
rather,  of  our  poverty.  The  principal  difference  be- 
tween private  and  public  ownership  is  that  of  Tolls 
against  Taxes.  Tolls  are  cheaper  than  taxes;  they 
are  voluntary,  whilst  taxes  are  compulsory;  they  are 
always  indiscriminating  whilst  taxes  are  usually 
discriminating  against  those  least  able  to  pay  them. 
The  toll  system  enables  a  frugal  man  to  economize 
and  prosper ;  the  tax  system  is  a  Socialistic  distri- 
bution of  wealth.  The  best  way  to  avoid  them 
is  to  curtail  the  functions  that  the  wealth  destroying 
agencies  perform.  To  talk  ECONOMY  is  but  to 
repeat  the  platitudes  of  every  demagogue  that  ever 
ran  for  public  office. 

To  the  extent  that  taxation  encroaches  upon  in- 
come or  increment,  Socialism  is  approached.  When- 


108         MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

ever  it  equals  these,  Socialism  is,  in  effect,  estab- 
lished. 

CHUECH  PEOPEETY  AND  TAXATION. 

Far  be  it  from  the  purpose  of  TIMOCEACY  to 
enter  upon  the  field  of  religious  thought  or  contro- 
versy. Origin  and  Destiny  are  themes  regarding 
which  no  one  can  offer  conclusive  proofs  or  irrefut- 
able arguments.  Nevertheless,  is  so  far  as  religious 
institutions  have  an  economic  bearing,  we  must  hue 
to  the  line,  let  the  chips  fall  where  they  may.  Much 
of  the  labor  product  of  the  world  has  been  and  still 
is  absorbed  in  the  contruction  of  Cathedrals, 
Churches  and  their  incidental  belongings.  In  past 
times  vast  areas  of  the  surface  of  the  earth  were 
held  by  ecclesiastical  institutions.  Church  edifices 
represent  to-day  in  some  localities,  more  labor  pro- 
duct than  the  homes  of  all  the  people  who  worship 
at  their  shrines.  They  are  occupied  and  used  only 
about  one-seventh  of  the  days  and  only  about  one- 
seventh  of  the  hours  in  each  of  these  days,  or,  in 
all,  only  about  one-fiftieth  of  the  time.  They  are 
usually  exempted  from  all  taxation  on  the  ground 
that  the  moral  precepts  taught  therein  and  promul- 
gated therefrom  are  of  such  value  to  the  community 
as  to  justify  said  exemption.  If  exemption  from 
taxation  was  the  only  loss  it  might  be  admitted  that 
moral  precepts  were  a  sufficient  recompense.  The 
greatest  loss,  however,  is  the  absorption  of  labor 
product  in  amounts  vastly  greater  than  that  for 
which  there  is  any  possible  justification,  wisdom  or 
need.  Does  not  the  erection  of  a  20  million  dollar 
cathedral  give  employment  to  labor,  say  our  aver- 
age philosophers?  Yes,  but  if  said  20  million  was 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY        109 

invested  in  improving  old  and  in  building  new 
homes,  as  much  labor  would  be  employed,  and,  when 
done,  the  poor  people  would  have  access  to  these 
homes  7  days  in  each  week  and  for  24  hours  in  each 
of  these  days.  Is  it  not  better  to  have  access  to  God 
for  one  hour  than  to  homes  for  50  hours?  Access 
to  God  can  be  had  from  the  closet  or  from  an  old- 
fashioned  quaker  meeting  house  as  well  as  from  a 
cathedral  whose  spires  pierce  the  Heavens,  but  pro- 
tection from  the  churlish  chiding  of  the  winter's 
wind  cannot  be  had  as  well  from  a  rookery  as  from 
a  comfortable  dwelling.  Moreover,  these  buildings 
should  be  so  constructed  as  to  be  used  for  more  pur- 
poses such  as  edifying  concerts,  scientific  lectures, 
etc.,  etc.,  thus  utilizing  the  labor  product  to  much 
better  advantage  and  in  no  wise  detracting  from 
their  usefulness  for  worship.  If  people  will  persist 
in  these  unwise  and  wasteful  expenditures,  and  if 
they  will  continue  to  withhold  access  from  elevating 
and  edifying  uses,  then  even-handed  justice  suggests 
CUMULATIVE  TAXATION. 

It  may  not  be  better  to  insure  temporal  comfort 
than  spiritual  solace,  but  it  certainly  seems  wiser 
to  do  so  than  to  encourage  spiritual  extravagance, 
and  pauperizing  waste. 

VALUATION  OF  PROPERTY  FOR  TAXATION. 

Great  injustice  is  inflicted  by  inequitable  and  dis- 
criminating VALUATIONS  ON  PROPERTY.  It 
amounts,  in  some  cases,  to  practical  exemption  or 
practical  confiscation.  This  wrong  is  attributable 
almost  wholly  to  incompetent  or  dishonest  assessors. 
Influence  is  usually  more  potent  than  justice.  Large 
corporations  usually  pay  on  about  one-tenth  of  just 


110         MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

value,  and  small  homes  on  about  double  just  value. 
This  wrong  has  been  so  universal  and  widespread 
that  the  oppressed  small  owner  almost  despairs  of 
remedial  action. 

It  is  one  of  the  greatest  preventives  in  the  way 
of  the  purchase  of  small  homes.  The  only  remedy 
is  the  adoption  of  a  plan  by  which  VALUE  can  be 
correctly  ascertained  and  enforced. 

This  process  would  necessarily  be  somewhat  cum- 
bersome, but  it  is  not  at  all  impracticable.  Some 
cumbersomeness  can  be  endured  rather  than  that  in- 
justice and  oft  times  robbery  should  be  inflicted. 
What  is  VALUE?  How  is  it  ascertained?  The 
best  basis  of  value,  and  the  one  that  should  be 
adopted  for  purposes  of  taxation  is  EXCHANGE 
value.  A  thing  is  worth  that  amount  for  which  it 
will  EXCHANGE.  Either  owner  or  assessor,  if 
they  disagree,  should  have  power  to  call  for  a  public 
sale.  The  owner  could  "buy  in"  if  he  desired  so  as 
to  protect  his  property  rights,  and  the  selling  price 
should  be  the  valuation  for  taxation.  Universally 
applied  this  would  work  no  injustice,  and,  ere  long, 
an  adjustment  would  be  made.  Knowing  that  this 
expedient  could  be  resorted  to,  neither  the  assessor 
nor  the  owner  could  work  an  injustice,  and  an  agree- 
ment would  usually  be  reached  before  the  remedy 
was  applied. 

In  case  of  a  corporation,  where  the  greatest  in- 
justice is  practised,  the  valuation  for  taxation 
should  be  the  aggregate  worth  of  its  BONDS  AND 
STOCKS,  less  its  movables.  This  would  include  its 
franchise  if  it  owned  one.  Similarly,  sales  might 
here  apply,  if  disagreement  could  not  be  reconciled. 
If  the  Company  had  no  "treasury"  stock  or  bonds 
to  be  offered  at  public  vendue,  a  percentage  thereof 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY        111 

might,  by  law,  be  exacted  or  turned  in  to  the  treas- 
ury by  the  stock  and  bond  holders  and  these  offered, 
the  proceeds,  of  course,  to  go  into  the  Company's 
treasury  and  the  price  at  which  they  sold  to  be  the 
basis  for  aggregating  the  value  for  assessment,  less 
movables.  The  Company  should  pay  this  tax  and 
the  stock  and  bond  holders  pay  no  tax  on  their  evi- 
dences of  ownership. 

Whenever  citizens  representing  a  certain  number 
in  personality  or  a  certain  aggregate  in  amount  of 
property,  deemed  the  basis  agreed  upon  between  the 
assessor  and  the  owner  of  property  of  any  consider- 
able magnitude  to  be  wrong  or  unjust,  they  should 
be  able  to  inforce  said  TEST  sale  by  petition  to  a 
court  or  otherwise.  The  fact  that  this  power  was 
exercisable  by  said  citizens  would  tend  always  to 
prevent  discriminating  valuations,  and,  if  discrim- 
inating valuations  were  prevented,  the  tax  rate  in 
almost  all  communities  could  be  reduced  fully  ONE 
HALF. 

TAXATION  BREEDS  REVOLUTION. 

The  French  Revolution  was,  at  bottom,  the  result 
of  oppressive  and  discriminating  taxation.  The  no- 
bility and  the  church  paid  practically  nothing.  The 
peasants  paid  practically  all  and  the  burden  became 
so  great  that  about  two-thirds  of  the  product  of  an 
acre  of  ground  or  of  the  output  of  a  factory  were 
taken  in  one  form  or  another  by  taxation.  Of  the 
remaining  third  the  landlord  took  about  one-half, 
leaving  the  peasant  or  worker  only  about  one-sixth 
of  the  value  of  his  toil.  The  nobility  consumed 
everything  by  living  in  idleness  and  luxury,  whilst 
the  poor  working  slave  could  scarcely  get  bread. 
Revolution  should  have  come  long  before  it  did,  but 


112          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

the  power  of  the  king  sustained  by  his  minions  and 
mermydons  was  so  great  and  the  stupidity  and  sub- 
missiveness  of  the  starving  masses  was  so  universal 
that  a  general  uprising  was  prevented  until  a  less 
powerful  monarch  ascended  the  throne.  When,  howf- 
ever,  the  oppressed  populace  had  an  opportunity  to 
get  a  fair  start,  then  the  crowned  heads  tumbled 
into  the  guillotine 's  maw,  men  almost  drank  boiling 
blood,  "hell  itself  breathed  contagion  on  the  world 
and  speer  tailed  devils  ran  upon  the  violent  tongues 
of  fire,"  doing  such  business  as  the  blackest  night 
would  quake  to  look  upon. 

With  taxation  almost  equal  in  most  parts  of  the 
United  States  of  America  to  one-third  of  the  pro- 
duct of  an  acre  or  an  industry,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  we  hear  distant  rumblings  of  an  approaching 
storm. 

The  difference  between  one-third  and  two-thirds 
is  all  that  protects  us.  With  increased  popular  in- 
dependence, more  education  and  a  keener  apprecia- 
tion of  the  contrasts  that  confront  us  and  a  more 
popular  disbelief  in  the  divinity  of  kings  and  in  the 
sacredness  of  stupid  and  oppressive  governmental 
conditions,  it  will  not  require  a  tax  burden  equal  to 
the  other  or  remaining  third  to  cause  the  flame  of 
fury  to  burst  forth  vengefully  and  the  torch  and  ax 
to  complete  the  work  of  bloodshed  and  ruin.  We 
must  therefore  cease  to  destroy  or  as  it  were  to 
burn  up  the  product  of  our  labor  by  contributing  it 
in  taxation  for  governmental  consumption  for  which 
we  get  no  inventoriable  return  that  alleviates  our 
suffering.  There  is  but  one  remedy  and  that  is  to 
curtail  governmental  operation  to  smaller  limita- 
tions and  to  substitute  tolls  which  are  voluntary  for 
taxes  that  are  enforced. 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY         113 

The  amount  of  labor  product  that  is  consumed  in 
useless  and  wasteful  governmental  establishments 
and  operation  would,  if  economically  applied,  cause 
wealth  to  accumulate  almost  twice  as  fast  as  it  does, 
which  would  correspondingly  reduce  the  price  of 
access  to  wealth  and  make  the  living  of  all  easier 
and  cheaper. 

People  do  not  appreciate  the  enormity  of  the 
drain  upon  their  resources  caused  by  useless  govern- 
ment, but  they  think  that  the  expenditures  made  by 
it  are  a  blessing.  Let  the  burden  become  much 
greater  than  it  now  it  and  they  will  not  only  feel 
its  oppression  but  will  rebel  against  its  imposition. 

Useless  governmentalism  is  but  a  phase  of  the 
persistence  of  ancient  superstitution  and  must  be 
discontinued  if  humanity  intends  to  better  its  con- 
dition. If  not  discontinued  taxes  will  not  only  be 
as  sure,  but  as  fatal  as  DEATH. 

DEATH  AND  TAXATION. 

The  old  proverb  that  "  there  is  nothing  sure  but 
death  and  taxes ' '  is  familiar  to  all  people. 

Death,  we  know  to  be  a  necessary  end  and  that  it 
will  come  when  it  will  come.  But  why  should 
TAXES  be  a  necessary  end,  and,  why  should  they 
come  at  all  ?  The  answer  is,  to  support  Government. 

Why  do  we  need  government  and  why  do  we  sup- 
port it!  Why  do  we  contribute  our  labor  product 
to  it  with  the  same  certainty  that  we  pay  the  last 
debt  of  nature?  The  admission  that  we  need  to  be 
governed  is  an  acknowledgment  that  we  cannot  gov- 
ern ourselves.  The  entire  idea  is  repugnant  to  the 
conception  of  independence.  If  ten  thousand  people 
were  suddenly  placed  on  a  fertile  island  about  the 


114          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

first  thing  they  would  do  would  be  to  institute  some 
sort  of  government.  Eeally  what  they  should  do 
would  be  to  adopt  and  agree  upon  rules  of  associa- 
tion so  as  to  avoid  conflict  with  each  other  in  their 
actions  and  operations.  These  rules  would  have  to 
be  enforcible,  when  necessary  for  the  preservation 
of  order,  by  some  power  or  might.  If  all  sufficiently 
regulated  themselves  there  would  be  no  need  of  gov- 
ernment. Even  under  self  regulation  there  would  be 
some  things  that  would  have  to  be  done  by  a  public 
agent  or  official.  This  official  would  have  to  be  sup- 
ported by  a  contribution  from  all.  As  these  contri- 
butions would  not  always  be  voluntarily  paid,  their 
collection  would,  at  times,  have  to  be  enforced.  Ob- 
viously the  least  coercion  would  leave  the  greatest 
independence,  and  the  least  contribution  would  leave 
the  greatest  individual  wealth.  Under  no  circum- 
stances would  it  be  necessary  to  create  or  appoint 
an  agent  who  would  be  looked  upon  as  a  being  in 
any  way  superior  to  the  rest.  But  this  would  likely 
be  the  status  of  some  individual  thus  created  or  ap- 
pointed. 

The  people  would  create  a  GOD  and  then  fall 
down  and  worship  him.  Instead  of  being  considered 
a  SERVANT  he  would  soon  be  deemed  a  LOED. 
He  would  be  maintained  in  pomp  and  splendor 
though  he  would  produce  not  one  dollar's  worth  of 
wealth.  He  and  his  associates  would  impose  and 
collect  taxes  which  the  people  would  pay  and  then 
bow  in  obsequious  genuflection  before  him  and  say 
"LONG  LIVE  THE  KING."  As  long  as  the  peo- 
ple are  "built  that  way"  so  long  will  taxes  be  as 
certain  and  as  unavoidable  as  Death. 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY        115 


GOVERNMENT  EXPENSES  ONE-THIRD 
OF  LABOR  PRODUCT. 

The  statement  that  we  are  consuming  about  one- 
third  of  our  labor  product  in  taxation  for  govern- 
ment support  may  appear  unreasonable  and  erro- 
neous. In  the  first  place  we  have  no  labor  product 
at  the  end  of  any  year  till  we  deduct  the  cost  of  liv- 
ing for  that  year.  In  1908  it  was  reported  that  our 
productions  were  about  as  follows:  From  Farms, 
7  billion;  Mines  2y2  billion;  Fisheries  and  Forests, 

1  billion ;  Factory  products,  18  billion,  or  a  total  of 
28y2  billion.    Most  of  the  product  of  the  farms  and 
mines  that  was  not  at  once  consumed  became  the 
raw  material  for  the  factory,  hence  our  product  for 
that  year  was  only  18  billion  instead  of  28y%  billion. 
The  average  product  of  16  million  families  is  not 
$1,800  per  year,  but  more  nearly  $500  or  $600  per 
year.    The  cost  of  converting  this  raw  material  into 
finished  or  factory  product  must  have  been  at  least 
two-thirds  of  the  value  of  the  same,  or  about  12 
billion.    This  would  leave  a  NET  product  of  about 
6  billion.    We  pay  for  all  forms  of  Government  fully 

2  billion,    which   is    one-third    or   33^%    thereof. 
There  is  therefore  left  an  actual  product  of  only 
about  4  billion  per  year. 

This  appears  to  be  sustained  by  the  facts  as  pre- 
sented during  the  last  10  years,  as  follows :  In  1900 
with  a  population  of  about  74  million  we  had  about 
80  billion  of  wealth,  and  in  1910  with  90  million 
population  we  estimate  120  billion  of  wealth,  or  an 
average  increase  of  only  4  billion  per  year  which 
makes  an  annual  average  per  capita  gain  of  about 
$25.00  which  seems  to  conform  to  the  facts  as  pre- 


116          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

sented  for  the  last  40  years.  It  has  cost  over  22 
billion  to  run  the  United  States  Government  since 
1875. 

If  therefore  we  had  not  expended  for  Government 
support  one-third  of  our  production  we  would  have 
had  a  per  capita  gain  of  50  per  cent,  more  than  we 
did.  More  wealth  would  now  exist,  hence  access  to 
and  the  use  of  it  would  be  cheaper  and  easier. 

However,  much  enthusiastic  PATEIOTS  may  de- 
precate or  ridicule  the  statement  that  Government  is 
entirely  too  costly,  it  is  nevertheless  true.  Since 
government  agents  are  not  and  never  will  be  frugal, 
and  since  the  masses  are  not  wise  enough  to  be  fru- 
gal, the  functions  of  Government  must  be  curtailed, 
and  the  accumulations  of  the  millionaires  must  be 
encouraged,  but  not  monopolized,  else,  ere  long, 
poverty  and  destitution  will  be  more  widespread 
than  we  find  it  to-day. 

Taxes,  be  they  direct  or  indirect ;  be  they  specific 
or  cumulative  must  be  curtailed.  This  is  a  world- 
wide necessity.  The  hollow  bauble  PATRIOTISM 
must  vanish ;  kings  must  become  TIMONEERS ;  sol- 
diers and  sailors  must  become  industrial  producers ; 
battleships  must  become  commercial  carriers;  forts 
must  become  factories;  taxes  must  become  tolls  so 
that  their  payment  can  be  voluntary;  the  Govern- 
ment Fetich  must  be  abandoned  and  its  world-wide 
WASTE  prevented. 

In  the  year  1911  there  were  384,088  Federal  Office 
holders  and  946,194  pensioners — both  aggregating 
1,330,282— about  one  voter  in  ten  in  New  York  City 
was  on  the  payroll  and  approximately  the  same  was 
true  in  other  cities.  Add  to  this  the  State  and 
County  employees  and  the  result  is  astounding.  The 
Government  Fetich,  if  not  checked,  will  enforce  So- 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY         117 

cialism.    Most  of  our  Taxes  go  to  pay  the  salaries 
of  our  Government  Fetich  mongers. 

THE  CUMULATIVE  TAX  BEIEFLY 
OUTLINED. 

In  order  to  destroy  monopoly  without  interfering 
with  EEASONABLE  reward  for  individual  excel- 
lence, and  without  diminishing  the  accumulation  of 
wealth,  Timocracy  proposes  FIVE  forms  of  CUMU- 
LATIVE TAXATION,  neither  of  which  is  at  all 
complicated  or  impracticable. 

1st.  AGAINST  RESIDENTIAL  MONOPOLY: 
Under  this  a  residential  owner  or  occupier  of 
a  private  House,  Park  or  Preserve  would  pay 
a  PENALTY  TAX  of  100  dollars  per  year  for 
a  100,000  dollar  property,  and  10,000  dollars  per 
year  for  a  million  dollar  property. 
2nd.  AGAINST  MONOPOLY  OF  NATUEAL  OP- 
POETUNITY:  Under  this,  an  owner  holding 
natural  sites  out  of  use  would  pay  the  same 
penalty  as  on  residences  if  an  offer  for  use  was 
refused  that  a  Court  should  deem  reasonable. 
3rd.  AGAINST  MONOPOLY  OF  EEAL  ESTATE 
IN  GENEEAL:  Under  this  any  SINGLE 
holder  of  EEAL  ESTATE  would  pay  1,000  dol- 
lars penalty  tax  on  a  rent  roll  of  100,000  dollars 
per  year,  and  100,000  on  one  of  a  million  dol- 
lars per  year. 

These  rates  would  tend  to  prevent  monopo- 
listic holdings  in  all  forms  of  FEEE  HOLD 
ESTATES. 

4th.  TO  PEEVENT  MONOPOLY  OF  INDUS- 
TEY:  Under  this  any  man  or  company  doing 
a  gross  business  of  one  million  per  month  would 


118         MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

pay  10,000  dollars  penalty,  and  on  a  gross  busi- 
ness of  ten  millions  per  month  would  pay  a 
million  dollars  penalty.  Banks,  one  half. 
5th.  TO  PREVENT  MONOPOLY  BY  INHERI- 
TANCE :  Under  this  no  single  individual  could 
inherit  more  than  25  million  dollars  from  one 
testator. 

Residence  should  be  held  to  go  with  the  pro- 
perty, and  in  case  of  mortgage  bonds,  the  In- 
heritor should  be  obliged  to  record  or  list  same 
before  they  became  binding  against  the  mort- 
gagor, and  for  fraud  or  evasion  as  to  this,  a 
double  tax  rate  should  be  imposed. 
It  is  clear  from  the  above  that  Timocracy  wages 
no  war  against  ownership,    but   only    against    the 
MONOPOLY  of  ownership. 

Monopoly  is  either  desirable  and  beneficial  or  it 
is  not.  If  it  is,  then  SOCIALISM,  which  is  the  per- 
fection of  monopoly,  should  be  established.  If  it  is 
NOT  desirable  and  beneficial,  then  support  for  any 
system  that  will  eradicate  it,  and  at  the  same  time 
NOT  diminish  wealth  accumulation  is  certainly  ad- 
visable. 

When  population  increases  2%  per  year,  and 
wealth  increases  2y2%  per  year,  society  is  on  safe 
ground,  and  living  conditions  will  gradually  improve. 
Of  course  the  greater  the  increase  of  per  capita 
wealth  over  population,  the  faster  will  living  condi- 
tions become  better.  Whenever  wealth  increases 
LESS  than  population,  living  conditions  will  gradu- 
ally become  worse  still,  ultimately,  rebarbarization 
will  result. 

It  is  not  proposed  that  any  SURPLUS  wealth  be 
paid  into  the  coffers  of  the  Government,  but  that  if 
ever  the  cumulative  rates  herein  proposed  yield 


TIMOCBACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY        119 

enough  for  Timocratic  Government,  no  other  taxes 
are  to  be  paid,  and  if  they  ever  yield  more  than 
enough  for  Timocratic  Government  they  shall  be 
horizontally  reduced.  All  accumulation  must  re- 
main in  the  custody  of  the  individual,  who,  by  his 
energy,  created  it  and,  by  his  frugality,  saves  it. 

To  the  objection  that  the  system  would  drive 
wealth  out  of  the  country  it  may  be  replied,  that, 
where  it  drives  a  single  100  millionaire  out,  it  will 
likely  invite  100  single  millionaires  in,  which  would 
be  a  desirable  exchange.  A  system  that  is  as  liberal 
to  wealth  as  Timocracy  will  not  injuriously  affect 
the  owners  of  that  wealth.  Some  time,  some  similar 
system  must  become  world  wide. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

Eight  To  Vote :  Should  Vote  In  Katio  Of  Contri- 
bution :  Contribution  Represents  Ownership :  Renter 
Pays  Tax — Not  Owner :  Residential  Tax  And  Rent 
Proper  Basis:  Amounts  Entitling  Each  To  Vote: 
Votes  Not  Allowed  For  Cumulative  Residential  Tax : 
Votes  Wherever  Residential  Tax  And  Rent  Is  Paid : 
Tax  Paying  Women  And  Rent  Paying  Women 
Should  Vote:  Women  Not  Less  Capable:  Women 
Should  Not  Hold  Elective  Office:  Not  Expedient: 
Universal  Suffrage  Works  No  Good  To  Masses: 
No  Proper  Person  Deprived  Of  Votes :  Would  Des- 
troy Boss  Oligarchism:  Its  Probable  Result:  Com- 
missioners For  City  Government:  Political  Cam- 
paign Funds: 

PROPOSITION  THIRD. 

That  there  should  be  a  qualification  for  citizen- 
ship and  suffrage  based  on  proper  education  and  on 
ultimate  taxation  and  the  equivalent  of  the  latter 
as  represented  by  residential  rent  and  in  propor- 
tion to  said  payments. 

When  human  beings  evolve  into  that  state  or  con- 
dition of  fixed  habitation  which  constitutes  hamlets, 
villages,  towns,  cities,  states  and  nations  there  arises 
a  necessity  for  the  adoption  among  them  of  cus- 
toms or  rules  of  conduct.  These  finally  become  crys- 
talized  into  what  we  call  laws. 

120 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY         121 

Since,  in  these  assemblages,  certain  duties  must 
be  performed  which  the  residents,  in  their  individual 
capacities  cannot  well  perform  or  cannot  perform 
at  all,  and,  since  some  of  these  duties,  from  the  in- 
herent nature  of  things,  can  yield  no  revenue  with 
which  to  compensate  private  endeavor,  the  neces- 
sity arises  to  create  or  to  constitute  what  we  call  a 
government  to  do  or  perform  these  said  duties.  The 
proper  status  of  this  so-called  government  is  not 
a  ruling  power,  or  agency,  but  simply  a  duty  per- 
forming agency  to  subserve  the  aforesaid  ends. 
Since  these  organizations  are  not  or  should  not  be, 
in  any  sense,  industrial,  their  only  means  of  sup- 
port are  or  should  be  from  contribution,  or,  rather, 
from  rates  or  taxes  derived  from  the  residents  of 
said  communities  or  assemblages. 

The  simplest  method  of  obtaining  this  revenue 
would  be  to  tax  each  adult  citizen  a  certain  fixed 
sum,  and,  in  this  case  each  adult  should  have  one 
vote  or  voice  in  the  choice  of  the  agents  or  employ- 
ees who  conduct  or  perform  said  duties:  and  thi& 
is  the  only  plan  under  which  each  adult  should  have 
one  (or  an  equal  number)  of  votes  or  voices. 

This  per  capita  plan  of  raising  revenue  is  found 
to  be  impracticable  because,  from  a  vast  majority  of 
adults,  it  cannot  be  collected.  The  only  practicable 
plan  seems  to  be,  to  collect  it  from  what  these  adults 
own  or  from  what  they  use,  either  directly  or  indi- 
rectly. The  direct  method  is  the  best,  and  the  most 
direct  or  ascertainable  or  available  thing  is  the  best 
source  from  which  to  collect  it.  This  source  is  fixed 
property,  such  as  lands,  houses,  railroads,  factories, 
etc.,  etc.  The  tax  receipts  for  funds  thus  collected 
represent  the  stock  certificates  of  ownership  in  the 
property  of  the  community,  state  or  nation,  and,  on 


122          MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

these  certificates  votes  should  be  cast.  Since  they 
are  not  held  equally,  we  are  not  EQUAL  share- 
holders in  a  common  property  as  all  political  parties 
now  in  America  strenuously  maintain,  hence  we 
should  not  have  equal  voice  in  the  control  of  said 
property.  The  tax  is  paid  primarily  by  the  owner 
but  he,  in  turn,  is  reimbursed  by  his  lessee,  and  the 
lessee  is,  in  turn,  often  reimbursed  by  a  sub  lessee— 
in  fact,  in  the  ultimate,  the  user  pays  the  tax.  In 
order  to  establish  a  system  on  this,  the  only  equit- 
able basis,  it  is  necessary  to  agree  upon  some  fixed 
ratio  between  taxation  and  rental  compensation. 
When  property  rents  for  ten  per  cent,  of  its  value, 
and  when  taxation  is  2%,  this  ratio  is  one-fifth.  If 
Government  functions  were  curtailed  within  their 
proper  limitations,  and  if  these  functions  were  eco- 
nomically, honestly  and  wisely  administered,  a  tax 
rate  of  one-tenth  rental  compensation  would  be  am- 
ple for  all  governmental  establishments.  This  would 
vary  in  different  places  and  at  different  times,  but 
it  will  do  for  illustration,  and,  if  established,  could 
be  modified  whenever  it  was  found  to  be  inequit- 
able. 

Therefore,  whenever  a  residential  tenant  paid, 
say,  $100  per  year  rent  for  an  unfurnished  house  or 
rooms  (rated  at  two-thirds  the  furnished  price)  and 
as  often  as  he  paid  full  multiples  of  $100,  he  or  she 
would  be  entitled  to  receive  from  the  owner  one  or 
more  voting  or  tax  paid  certificates.  The  owner 
would  receive  from  the  tax  collector  one  certificate 
for  every  one-tenth  of  this  sum,  or  for  $10,  that  he 
paid  in  taxation. 

Owners  or  lessees  of  stores,  factories,  farms, 
transportation  or  other  COMMEECIAL  plants 
or  properties,  would  be  reimbursed  by  their  pat- 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY        123 

rons,  hence,  rightfully,  the  PATRONS  should 
vote;  but  these  reimbursements  are  in  such  small 
amounts  and  paid  so  indirectly,  that  the  certificates 
could  not  be  practically  transferred  from  said 
owners  or  lessees  to  these  patrons,  hence  these 
(commercial)  properties  should  not  carry  voting 
privilege.  This  is  just,  and,  more  than  this,  in  the 
case  of  residential  tenants  or  sub-tenants,  it  is  en- 
tirely practicable  and  constitutes  a  substantially 
equitable  system. 

Now,  whenever  voting  time  arrived,  the  holder  of 
these  certificates  could  and  should  vote  them  in  the 
district  where  issued,  for  the  candidates  there  pre- 
sented. Residential  tax  or  rent  anywhere  would 
carry  voting  privilege,  but  other  tax  or  rent  would 
carry  it  nowhere.  Transient  Hotels  should  be  rated 
as  commercial  property,  but  to  permanent  residents 
therein  owners  or  lessees  would  supply  voting  cer- 
tificates on  the  basis  herein  proposed.  Combined 
Commercial  and  Residential  properties  would  carry 
votes  for  the  residential  part  only.  To  each  certi- 
ficate would  be  attached  a  supplemental  coupon,  to 
be  used  for  primary  elections,  and  votes  would  be 
cast  for  candidates  direct,  thus  abolishing  the  use- 
less, corrupt,  unrepresentative  and  BOSS-controlled 
conventions.  Furthermore,  the  trouble  and  expense 
of  registration  would  be  unnecessary.  Unless  party 
lines  were  closely  drawn,  even  primary  elections 
would  be  unnecessary.  Most  candidates  are  now 
elected  by  pluralities,  hence  the  only  evil  resulting 
from  the  abolition  of  neglected  primaries  and  BOSS- 
controlled  conventions  would  be  that  these  plurali- 
ties would  be  less  than  now  on  account  of  the  prob- 
ability of  several  unnominated  and  un-BOSS-con- 
trolled  candidates,  which  might  be  a  great  improve- 


124          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

ment.  In  addition  to  these  betterments  the  ten- 
dency of  the  proposed  system  would  be  to  cause  tax- 
ation and  rental  compensation  to  be  and  remain  in 
the  ratio  of  10  to  100  or  such  other  ratio  as  might 
be  equitable.  Allowing  for  just  compensation,  for 
invested  capital  and  for  incidentals,  depreciation, 
etc.,  etc.,  the  above  appears  to  be  about  right. 
If  $100  for  a  renter  and  $10  for  an  owner  was 
deemed  too  low,  the  basis  might  be  $200  and  $20  or 
$400  and  $40.  If  residential  rent  temporarily  ex- 
ceeded ten  times  tax,  an  owner  or  tenant  might,  for 
a  bona  fide  tenant  or  sub-tenant,  secure  additional 
certificates  by  paying  $10,  $20,  or  $40  therefor  to 
the  tax  office  in  his  district. 

On  either  basis,  or  on  any  basis,  equitable  relativ- 
ity would  be  maintained,  and  this  is  the  only  just 
and  fair  relation  between  men  as  regards  anything 
in  nature.  There  could  be  established  in  each  con- 
gressional district,  or  county,  or  city,  as  might  be 
deemed  necessary  a  permanent  and  fixed  office  or 
department,  of  as  much  dignity  as  an  Internal  Reve- 
nue  Office  or  a  Post-Office,  the  occupant  of  which,  or 
thereof  to  be  an  official  appointed  and  confirmed  as 
are  Post  Masters  and  Revenue  Collectors.  This  de- 
partment could  be  designated  and  known  as  the 
"Tax  and  Voting"  department.  Its  officials  would 
fairly  assess  all  fixed  property  in  its  territory  and, 
to  it,  all  taxes  could  be  paid — so  much  for  City,  State 
and  Nation.  County  seats  should  comprise  all 
county  property,  not  specifically  a  part  of  any  other 
municipal  corporation:  so  that  there  would  be  only 
three  corporations — Municipal,  State  and  Nation. 
The  State  Government  might,  ere  long,  be  abolished, 
thus  assuring  greater  simplicity  and  uniformity. 
This  department  would  collect  all  taxes  and  remit 


TIMOCEACY  VS.  DEMOCEACY    125 

to  each  its  proper  share.  To  each  tax-payer  would 
issue  one  voting  certificate,  good  for  that  year,  for 
every  $10,  $20  or  $40  that  he  paid  in  residential 
taxation,  and  said  tax-payer  would,  as  above  set 
forth,  transfer  one  to  any  residential  tenant  for 
every  $100,  $200  or  $400  said  tenant  paid  to  him  as 
his  tenant  or  lessee,  and  this  tenant  to  a  residential 
sub-tenant.  When  voting  time  came,  the  owner  or 
holder  of  these  certificates  could  present  them  in 
person  or  send  them  by  post,  to  the  aforesaid  de- 
partment, duly  filled  out  and  signed,  to  be,  by  said 
department  officials,  acknowledged,  if  need  be,  and 
recorded,  as  set  forth,  on  their  face.  The  certifi- 
cates would,  in  form  and  shape,  appear  something 
like  the  following: 

VOTING  CEETIFICATE,  19—. 
STATE  OF  NEW  YOEK, 

DISTEICT or  COUNTY 

Good  for  one  (or  any  number)  of  votes. 

FOE  CONGEESSMAN 

FOE  STATE  ASSEMBLY 

FOE  CITY  COUNCILMAN. . 


The  Primary  Election  certificate  would  be  of  simi- 
lar form  and  shape.  SIGNED  (voter's  name  and 
residence) . ... ... ... .,. .,.,. 

There  is  no  complication  to  this  system  that  is  in 
any  way  serious,  and  any  adult  who  is  too  incom- 
petent to  perform  these  simple  requirements  is  not 
fit  to  vote.  The  idea  is,  not  to  bring  the  conditions 
of  suffrage  DOWN  to  the  quality  of  the  voter  (as 
all  parties  now  try  to  do]  but  to  bring  the  quality 
of  the  vote  UP  to  the  conditions  of  suffrage,  as  all 
parties  should  try  to  do. 


126          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

The  tax  paying  period  could  be  May  or  June  and 
the  voting  time  in  November  or  December,  so  that 
each  year,  when  election  time  arrived  the  certifi- 
cates would  be  rightfully  distributed.  It  is  true,  that 
against  this  system,  objections  can  be  urged,  but 
none  that  are  serious,  and  none  that  time  and  prac- 
tice would  not  thoroughly  overcome.  If  it  is  true 
that  so-called  governmental  corporations  do  eman- 
ate from  the  people,  and  that  they  do  derive  their 
powers  from  the  people,  and,  if  it  is  true  that  these 
corporations  are  supported  by  contributions  from 
the  people,  then  it  is  true  that  the  people  own  these 
corporations  in  the  ratio  of  their  contributions ;  and, 
if  they  do  own  in  this  ratio  and  if  it  is  the  best  prac- 
ticable plan  of  ascertaining  relative  excellence,  then 
they  should  vote  in  this  ratio.  The  certificate  is 
handed  down  or  transferred  from  owner  to  tenant 
and  to  sub-tenant  as  fairly  and  justly  as  is  practic- 
able; and,  since  all  adults  are  owners,  tenants  or 
sub-tenants,  if  they  have  any  fixed  habitation  at  all, 
(and  if  they  have  no  fixed  habitation  they  should  not 
vote)  practically  speaking,  every  adult  would  have 
at  least  one  vote. 

Farmers  would  vote  on  the  valuation  of  their 
domicile  and  its  fixed  belongings,  as,  on  their  culti- 
vatable  land,  they  are  reimbursed  by  the  users  of 
their  products.  Vacant  city  lots  should  be  deemed 
commercial  properties,  hence  carry  no  voting  privil- 
ege, until  residentially  occupied  or  used.  Any  adult 
could  vote  in  any  district  of  which  he  or  she  held  a 
voting  certificate  which  would  be  just,  because  its 
possession  would  be  prima-facie  evidence  that  he, 
she  or  some  other  person,  had  paid  residential  tax 
and  is  to  that  extent  an  owner  in  that  district.  Of 
course,  certificates  might  be  counterfeited,  lost  or 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY        127 

forged,  but  we  do  not  abolish  our  currency  because 
of  this  liability.  By  a  system  of  numbering  all  pos- 
sibility of  this  could  be  prevented,  and,  the  details 
could  be  easily  worked  out  and  applied.  The  plan 
is  simple  and  inexpensive,  and,  above  all,  it  is  just. 
Under  it  fraud  would  be  practically  impossible. 


SHOULD  WOMEN  VOTE  AND  HOLD  ELECT- 
IVE OFFICES! 

Unquestionably  a  residential  tax-paying  or  a  rent- 
paying,  or,  a  sub-rent-paying  woman,  or  a  woman, 
who,  by  any  lawful  mean's,  became  possessed  of  one 
or  more  certificates,  could  and  should  vote  just  the 
same  as  a  man.  Husband  and  wife  could  divide 
equally  their  residential  voting  certificates. 

But,  should  women  be  eligible  to  hold  these  elec- 
tive offices? 

There  is  no  reasonable  objection  to  this  except 
that  of  INEXPEDIENCY,  but  this  objection  is 
weighty  and  is  deemed  sufficient  to  exclude  them. 
On  the  average  there  is  little,  if  any,  intellectual  su- 
periority in  men  over  women.  In  men,  however, 
there  is  a  greater  range  of  mental  endowment  or 
capacity.  Individual  males  rise  higher  above  and 
sink  further  below  the  average  than  individual  fe- 
males do.  This,  doubtless,  accounts  for  the  greater 
individual  male  accomplishments  in  life. 

Has  woman  a  different  sphere  in  life  from  man? 
In  the  process  of  conception,  gestation,  parturition 
and  sustentation  of  the  progeny  of  the  human  race 
her  sphere  is  not  only  different  but  exclusive.  If  it 
ceases  to  be  different  where  does  it  cease?  When 
she  becomes  a  wage  earner,  it  is  said.  The  fact  of 


128          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

woman  being  a  wage  earner  does  not  cause  her 
sphere,  in  the  abstract,  to  be  the  same  as  that  of 
man  any  more  than  the  fact  of  a  man  ceasing  to 
be  a  wage  earner,  would  cause  his  sphere  to  be  the 
same  as  that  of  woman.  Aside  from  the  natural, 
and,  in  the  childhood  of  the  human  race,  the  exclu- 
sive adaptability  of  woman  for  the  performance  of 
certain  functions,  they  become  specialized  for  those 
functions  by  environment  and  heredity.  To  inflict 
upon  women  the  duty  of  holding  office,  which  means 
also  the  duty  of  serving  in  any  public  or  official 
capacity,  would  largely  detract  from  their  time  and 
opportunity  to  perform  those  duties  for  which  they 
are  exclusively  adapted.  This  would  mean  that  these 
duties  would  be  less  well  done  than  they  would  be 
otherwise  done. 

To  introduce  woman  into  man's  sphere  might 
work  well,  but  to  introduce  man  into  woman 's  sphere 
would  not  work  well.  If  women  held  elective  office 
to  any  great  extent,  such  a  transposition  would  have 
to  be  made,  or  duties  would  go  undone.  There  is 
nothing  inherent  in  women  that  enable  them  to  per- 
form the  duties  of  office  holding  better  than  men  can 
do  them,  but  there  is  much  inherent  in  her  that  en- 
ables her  to  do  things  belonging  to  her  sphere  better 
than  men  could  do  them.  Certain  it  is  that  her  pri- 
vate duties  would  be  conflicted  with  to  some  extent, 
which  would  cause  a  loss,  unless  more  was  gained 
to  the  Eostrum,  the  Forum,  the  public  Hall,  the  Leg- 
islative Assembly,  the  Congress  and  even  to  the 
Army  and  Navy  than  was  lost  to  the  domestic 
sphere,  for  to  the  domestic  sphere  there  would 
surely  be  a  loss.  There  is,  however,  nothing  inher- 
ently wrong  in  office-holding  for  women,  but,  pro- 
positions to  be  worthy  of  support,  must  be  not  only 


TIMOCKACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY         129 

right  but  expedient  and  practicable.  Female  office 
holding  is  INEXPEDIENT.  It  is  true  that,  in  any 
community,  many  women  are  more  capable  than 
many  men,  but,  all  women  are  not  more  capable  than 
all  men,  and  the  female  tax  or  rent  payer,  would 
suffer  no  wrong  by  being  obliged  to  cast  her  vote 
for  men  only.  A  City  Council,  a  State  Legislature, 
or  a  National  Congress  made  up  of  both  men  and 
women  would  be  no  improvement  on  one  composed 
of  men  only.  To  hold  that  women  would  not  be 
fairly  represented  because  obliged  to  vote  for  men 
only  would  be  to  say  that  she  would  not  be  fairly 
protected  or  defended  unless  by  a  female  policeman 
or  soldier.  Men  could,  with  equal  reason,  say  that 
they  would  not  be  fairly  represented  in  the  care  of 
their  homes  and  tutelage  of  their  babies  in  acknowl- 
edging that  vastly  superior  function  to  women.  If 
women  were  eligible  to  elective  office  the  sentiment 
of  love  and  hate  would  become  a  factor  of  no  small 
moment,  and  ofttimes  determine  choice  instead  of 
considerations  of  fitness  and  capacity.  Men  are  such 
unreasoning  creatures  that  beauty  and  grace,  gen- 
tleness and  sweetness  would  often  win  their  votes  as 
against  the  grandest  female  intellect  who  possessed 
less  or  none  of  these  qualities.  It  is  no  discrimina- 
tion against,  but  a  relief  to  women  to  exempt  them 
from  serving  as  policemen,  soldiers,  or  civil  officials, 
but  they  should  perform  the  duty  of  voting  in  the 
ratio  of  their  interests. 

Under  universal  suffrage  the  ballot  would  do  the 
mass  of  women  no  good  as  it  does  the  mass  of  men 
no  good;  but  the  increased  cumbersomeness  and  in- 
efficiency of  an  unqualified  ballot  might  hasten  the 
adoption  of  a  qualified  ballot  for  both  men  and 
women.  Suffragettes  should  add  to  their  demand 


130          MILLIONISM  'VS.  SOCIALISM 

the  condition  of  a  qualified  ballot  for  both  men  and 
women. 

Not  only  is  the  holding  of  public  office  by  women 
unnecessary  to  their  own  well  being  or  to  that  of 
society,  but  it  is  useless  and  inefficacious  in  its  prac- 
tical result.  Many  women  do  not  want  it,  and  those . 
who  do  are  usually  husbandless  misanthropists  or 
childless  wives.  For  appointive  positions  under 
these  boards,  competent  women  should  not  be  ex- 
cluded on  account  of  sex  only,  but,  even  this  should 
not  be  encouraged.  It  is  true  that  no  honorable  op- 
portunity of  securing  the  means  of  subsistence 
should  be  withheld  from  women,  but  it  is  a  fair  ques- 
tion whether  or  not,  on  the  whole,  it  would  not  be 
better  for  women  to  compete  less  with  men  in  the 
outer  field  of  endeavor,  and  rule  more  supremely 
in  the  empire  of  the  home.  The  extension  of  the 
right  to  vote  to  tax  or  rent  paying  women,  is  right, 
expedient  and  practicable.  Eligibility  to  member- 
ship in  public  boards  of  control,  strictly  speaking, 
may  be  right  enough  and  practicable  enough,  but  it 
is  fatally  inexpedient. 

Whilst  this  system  extends  to  all  tax  and  rent 
paying  men  and  women,  the  right  to  vote  on  a  fair 
basis,  and,  whilst  it  is  almost  equivalent  to  Univer- 
sal suffrage,  in  its  comprehensiveness  and  scope,  yet 
it  would  be  very  different  in  its  results,  because  it  is 
not  INEQUITABLE  EQUALITY,  but  EQUIT- 
ABLE INEQUALITY,  or  rather,  EQUITABLE 
EELATIVITY. 

Let  it  be  said  almost  in  defiance  of  successful 
contradiction,  that  equal  and  universal  suffrage 
never  has  and  never  can  accomplish  anything  of 
consequence  even  for  the  universal-suffragist,  for 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY         131 

the  reason  that  he  is  not  fit  for  nor  capable  of 
using  it. 

In  the  United  States  of  America,  where  every 
man  (unfortunately)  has  had  one  vote,  the  contrasts 
between  wealth  and  poverty  are  as  great  or  greater 
than  in  the  most  autocratic  governments  of  any  part 
of  Europe. 

And  why  is  this  so?  Because  men  of  talent,  fit- 
ness and  brains,  use  the  votes  of  the  unfit  and  un- 
worthy for  their  own  advantage  and  gain.  Equal 
and  Universal  suffrage  simply  creates  voting  au- 
tomita  by  which  corruption  is  fostered  and  proper 
reforms  prevented.  Democracy  is  as  yet  and  per- 
haps ever  will  be  incapable  of  wielding  its  own  wea- 
pons. 

As  has  been  stated,  under  the  system  herein  pro- 
posed no  man  or  woman  worthy  to  be  called  such 
would  be  deprived  of  at  least  one  vote.  If  $100 
rent  per  year  is  too  high,  the  minimum  might  be 
fifty  dollars  which  would  not  disturb  equitable  rela- 
tivity. The  result  would  be  the  practical  elimination 
of  Boss  Oligarchism  (the  necessary  concomitant  of 
generical  Democracy)  and  the  establishment  of 
business  methods  in  public  affairs.  The  better  class 
of  citizens  would  then  vote  and  not  neglect  that  duty 
as  many  now  do,  because  excellence  would  be  recog- 
nized. Furthermore,  fewer  men  (only  representa- 
tives in  lower  bodies)  would  be  voted  for  and  since 
with  these  would  rest  responsibility  and  power,  bet- 
ter men  would  accept  public  office.  The  judiciary 
would  be  independent  and  undefiled  which  would  be 
as  priceless  a  blessing  as  a  dependent  judiciary  is 
now  a  blighting  curse.  The  tendency  would  be  con- 
stantly upward  and  no  natural  rights  of  mankind 
would  be  in  any  way  oppressed,  curtailed  or  in- 
fringed. Eeformation  in  society  when  needed  would 


132          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

be  sooner  accomplished  because  the  power  that 
would  make  these  changes  would  be  more  intelligent, 
hence  more  capable  of  passing  on  issues  of  reform. 
Even  Socialists  or  Geocrats  would  have  a  better 
chance  under  the  plan  proposed,  because  if  there 
be  aught  that  is  good  in  their  propositions  they 
would  have  a  wiser  constituency  to  appeal  to  and  if 
this  class  saw  merit  they  would  soon  control  the 
masses.  The  time  might  come  in  the  future  when 
these  systems  would  be  worthy  of  consideration  and 
adoption,  but  as  men  now  are  and  are  likely  for 
some  time  to  be  they  are  neither  right,  expedient  nor 
practical.  If  Universal  Suffrage  had  not  been  cur- 
rent in  America  the  cry  would  be  "give  us  all  a 
vote,"  then  we  will  regulate.  We  have  had  it  for  a 
hundred  years.  What  has  it  accomplished?  Boss  Oli- 
garchism  and  Corruption.  A  man  to  become  a  car- 
penter or  a  cobbler,  must  have  some  education  and 
qualification  for  that  vocation;  but,  to  become  a 
voter  or  a  law-maker,  ignorance,  imbecility  and  irre- 
sponsibility appear  to  be  most  highly  prized  because 
easiest  used  for  corrupt  administration. 

Private  property  is  controlled  and  managed  by 
individuals  in  the  ratio  of  their  ownership;  why, 
therefore,  should  not  the  small  part  which  they 
yield  up  to  government  be  likewise  controlled,  since 
they  own  in  the  ratio  that  they  contribute? 

WHY  SHOULD  EQUALITY  IN  VOTES, 
WHICH  CONTEOL  SOCIAL  ORGANIZATIONS, 
BE  RECOGNIZED  WHEN  EQUALITY  IN  PER- 
SONALITY AND  PROPERTY  IS  NOT? 

A  RENTER,  however,  is,  for  the  purposes  of 
taxation,  practically  the  owner  of  that  which  he  uses, 
for,  on  that,  he  and  not  the  owner  pays  ultimate 
taxation. 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCEACY        133 

For  the  amount  paid  by  the  owners  and  occupants 
of  Private  Residences,  Parks,  Preserves  and  the  like 
in  CUMULATIVE  TAXATION  as  proposed  herein 
they  SHOULD  NOT  vote,  because  this  taxation  rep- 
resents a  PENALTY  for  residential  monopoly, 
hence  should  not  be  treated  as  representing  owner- 
ship in  the  governmental  corporation. 

Monopoly  should  carry  with  it  no  privileges. 

The  most  logical — in  fact  the  only — real  objec- 
tion that  can  be  reasonably  urged  against  voting  on 
the  basis  of  excellence  and  interests  instead  of  per 
capita,  is  the  difficulty  of  establishing  an  equitable 
basis. 

To  give  to  owners  ALL  the  voting  rights,  when 
their  tenants  are  really  the  tax-payers,  is  clearly 
wrong,  and,  to  give  to  small  tax-payers  (owners  or 
renters)  the  same  privileges  as  to  large  ones  is 
equally  wrong.  The  plan  proposed,  with  but  little 
complication,  overcomes  this  objection,  and,  in  fact, 
all  other  reasonable  objections,  and  gives  to  practic- 
ally every  man  and  woman  at  least  ONE  VOTE. 
Fair  minded  people  do  not  object  to  EQUITABLE 
RELATIVITY  in  all  things  and  processes,  and, 
however  opprobious  the  idea  may  be,  it  is  neverthe- 
less true  that  excellence  and  ownership  are  oftener 
found  together  than  excellence  and  indigence. 

HOW  IT  WOULD  WORK. 

We  will  assume  that  in  a  congressional  district 
there  exists  residential  valuation  of,  say,  $200,000,- 
000  dollars  in  fixed  property  and  that  the  rate  is 
2%.  The  tax  collected  would  be  $4,000,000. 

On  the  basis  of  $10  for  a  tax-payer  (which  means 
$100  dollars  for  a  rent  payer)  there  would  be  issued 


134          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM  ' 

certificates  which  would  entitle  some  persons  (who- 
ever held  them)  to  400,000  votes. 

If  there  were  an  average  of  50,000  men  and 
women  in  each  district,  there  would  be  about  8  votes 
per  capita.  Of  course  some  men  or  women  would 
cast  10  or  perhaps  100  votes,  but  they  would  be 
fairly  entitled  to  do  so  because  each  vote  would  rep- 
resent a  tax  payment  of  $10  or  a  rent  payment  of 
$100.  There  would  be  very  few  who  would  get  no 
vote  at  all,  because  almost  every  man  or  woman — 
certainly  all  who  are  fit  to  vote — would  pay  at  least 
$100  per  year  or  $8.33  per  month  in  residential  rent. 

COMMISSIONEES  FOE  CITY  GOVERNMENT. 

This  plan  has  proven  satisfactory  in  several  cit- 
ies. It  simplifies  process  and  individualizes  respon- 
sibility. 

The  prevention  of  WARD  representation  is  not 
a  serious  objection.  Commissioners,  timocratically 
elected,  would  doubtless  provide  good  City-County 
government;  but  if  controlled  by  BOSS  OLIGAR- 
CHIES, as  is  inevitable  under  universal  suffrage, 
the  result  would  be  little,  if  any,  improvement  on 
the  present  bi-cameral  systems.  If  people  really  de- 
sire to  purify  the  ballot  and  to  improve  Government, 
whether  by  Commissioners  or  otherwise,  Timocracy 
offers  a  good  plan  which  should  be  adopted  till  they 
get  a  better  plan. 

On  the  other  hand  it  is  argued:  Have  we  not 
under  boss  oligarchism,  even  acknowledging  all 
its  attendant  mal-administration  and  corruption, 
thriven  more  and  grown  richer  than  any  nation  on 
earth?  To  this  the  answer  is:  Had  we  not  been 
cursed  with  boss  oligarchism  and  curruption,  there- 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY         135 

by  being  able  to  save  what  has  so  ruthlessly  been 
squandered,  would  we  not  have  thriven  yet  more  and 
grown  yet  richer?  It  is  not  problematical  but  cer- 
tain that  if  more  had  been  saved  and  conserved  and 
if  less  had  been  scattered  and  squandered,  we  would 
now  possess  yet  more  wealth  and  consequently 
greater  civilized  development  and  higher  standards 
of  living.  The  fact  is  that  by  reason  of  boundless 
resources  and  limitless  opportunities,  we  have  in 
the  past  thriven  in  spite  of  this  corruption  and  have 
protected  individual  and  property  rights  in  spite 
of  its  demoralization;  but  it  by  no  means  follows 
that,  in  the  future,  with  a  largely  increased  popula- 
tion and  largely  decreased  opportunities,  we  will 
continue  so  to  thrive,  and  so  to  protect  property 
rights,  especially  when  at  our  very  door  we  are  con- 
fronted with  growing  tendencies  towards  Socialism 
and  Fetichism  which,  are  but  necessary  and  kindred 
concomitants  of  popular  irresponsibility  and  boss 
oligarchism.  Especially  is  the  system  herein  pro- 
posed desirable  for  Municipal  Suffrage,  and,  if  never 
extended  to  the  State  or  Nation,  the  reform  would 
be  very  beneficial.  Suppose  that  in  business  cor- 
porations voting  was  done  per  capita  or  by  the 
masses,  rather  than  per  stocks,  can  any  reasonable 
man  doubt  that  the  management  would  be  less  effi- 
cient? 

No  municipal  Corporation  or  State  or  Nation  that 
is  based  on  the  votes  of  its  citizens  (who  are  its 
owners  in  the  ratio  that  they  contribute  to  its  main- 
tenance) can  be  rightly  goverried  on  the  per  capita 
basis,  nor  can  a  fair,  honest  and  just  expression  of 
qualified  voters  be  secured  by  the  present  ward- 
boss  nominating  conventions,  nor  by  the  temporarily 
improvised  booth,  bar-room,  ballot  box  system.  Most 


136          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

all  primary  elections  and  nominating  conventions 
from  which  issue  most  all  our  candidates,  are  too 
absurd  to  warrant  more  than  two  words  in  denun- 
ciation and  these  are  Farcical  and  Damnable. 

POLITICAL  CAMPAIGN  FUNDS. 

Whenever  a  corporation  contributes  money  to  a 
campaign  fund,  it  is  guilty  of  a  misdemeanor  under 
existing  laws,  which  are  largely  the  product  of  phar- 
iseeism  and  hypocricy.  Under  existing  so-called 
Democratic-Republican,  but  really  only  Boss-Oli- 
garchic government,  many  men  are  elected  to  office 
for  the  express  and  avowed  purpose  of  "bleeding 
the  corporations. "  Many  bills  are  presented  in  Al- 
dermanic  boards  and  Legislative  Assemblages  for 
the  express  purpose  of  receiving  bribes  for  suppres- 
sion. Most  of  these  bills  are  iniquitous  and  would, 
under  a  proper  political  system,  damn  to  perdition 
the  man  who  offered  them.  Corporations  have  con- 
sequently been  forced,  not  for  the  enrichment  but 
for  the  protection  of  their  stockholders,  to  make 
political  issues  and  elections  a  part  of  their  neces- 
sary business.  It  is  by  no  means  for  the  sole  and 
only  purpose  of  obtaining  valuable  grants  and  fran- 
chises that  corporations  go  into  politics,  but  it  is, 
in  a  majority  of  cases,  for  protection  against  vicious- 
ness  and  political  blackmail.  More  than  this :  When 
some  great  issue  takes  hold  of  the  mass  of  unthink- 
ing voters,  like  the  proposition  in  1896,  to  repudiate 
half  the  existing  fixed  obligations  by  the  unlimited 
coinage  of  debased  silver  dollars,  what  is  more  rea- 
sonable, or,  for  that  matter,  more  dutiful,  than  that 
the  corporation  holding  these  obligations  should 
seek  to  defeat  the  unwise  and  unjust  proposition? 


TIMOCRACY  VS.  DEMOCRACY    137 

Why  should  not  the  management  of  any  Company 
contribute  one  dollar  or  any  sum  toward  the  defeat 
of  a  proposition,  which,  if  established,  would  cost 
the  stockholders  ten  or  perhaps  a  thousand  dollars? 
The  solution  for  all  such  temptation  is  the  elevation 
and  purification  of  the  ballot.  If  people  voted  in 
the  ratio  of  their  interests  instead  of  in  the  ratio 
of  their  incapacity,  the  occupation  of  the  bribe  giver 
and  bribe  taker  would,  in  great  measure,  be  gone. 
But  no  human  establishment  can  be  perfect  while 
human  beings  are  imperfect,  nevertheless,  steps  in 
the  direction  of  perfection  are  certain  to  accomplish 
considerable  good.  To  legally  attempt  to  prevent 
campaign  contributions  is  usually  abortive  and  quite 
as  often  wrong  as  right.  Right  action  and  good  con- 
duct cannot  be  manufactured  by  legislatures  or  by 
boss-dominated  conventions.  When  Governments 
seek  to  control  business  corporations,  what  is  more 
reasonable  or  proper  than  that  business  corpora- 
tions should  (and  under  Boss  Oligarchism  they  will) 
seek  to  control  government  by  electing  officials  fa- 
vorable to  their  cause. 


CHAPTER   V. 

How  And  For  What  We  Should  Vote:  Govern- 
ments Run  On  Business  Principles ;  Capability  And 
Responsibility  Required:  Independent  Judiciary: 
Not  Possible  Under  Democracy:  Promotion  For 
Fitness:  Office-Holding  Class — Not  Objectionable: 
Democracy  Fatal  Weakness  In  Judiciary :  Elective 
Judiciary  A  Farce:  The  Reason  Why:  Frequent 
Changes  Not  Necessary :  Laws  And  Litigation : 
Initiative  And  Referendum  Not  Feasible:  Social 
Evils  Not  Regulated  By  Government:  Superabun- 
dance Of  Legislation :  Harm  To  All  Business :  How 
The  System  Might  Be  Adopted:  How  It  Would 
Work:  The  United  States  Senate  Illogical:  The 
Electoral  College:  Enlarged  Constituencies: 

PROPOSITION  FOURTH. 

That  the  qualified  voters  or  electors  should  elect 
only  the  lower  or  popular  branch  of  all  legislative 
assemblages;  that  the  higher  or  advisory  branch 
should  be  chosen  by  and  from  the  lower;  and  that 
the  executive  should  be  chosen  by  and  from  the 
higher:  all  for  stated  terms  and  fixed  tenures. 

That  all  Judicial  officials  should  be  appointed  by 
state  or  national  executives,  confirmed  by  state  or 
national  legislators  and  serve  for  life  or  during  good 
behavior;  and  that  in  case  of  death  or  removal,  the 
senior  in  service  in  a  lower  court  should  be  pro- 

138 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY         139 

moted  to  the  higher;  that  all  minor  or  lower  officials 
should  be  chosen  as  far  as  practicable  by  competi- 
tive examination  as  tests  of  fitness,  and  those  not  so 
chosen  to  be  appointed  and  confirmed  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Judiciary. 

How  little  wisdom  rules  the  world.  How  often 
Kings  are  but  animated  things. 

The  exercise  of  the  voting  duty  should  be  confined 
more  to  Interests  and  Excellence  than  to  men  and 
manipulation;  more  to  principles  than  to  personali- 
ties. 

Public  office  should  in  fact  be  a  "public  trust " 
and  not  a  private  prerequisite  or  personal  "snap." 
Unfortunately  under  Boss  Oligarchism  the  latter 
and  not  the  former  conception  ovf  public  service  is 
almost  the  Universal  conception.  This,  however,  is 
the  necessary  result  of  the  so-called  Democratic 
(1)  system.  As  far  as  measures  and  principles  are 
concerned  not  half  of  the  men  chosen  to  public  office 
by  popular  suffrage  represent  either,  and  scarce 
half  of  this  half  know  anything  about  measures  or 
principles.  Government  corporations  should  be  run 
on  business  principles  or  bases  because  they  deal 
with  powers  and  values,  the  same  as  do  business 
corporations.  The  stockholders  of  a  corporation  in 
the  ratio  of  their  interests  elect  the  directors  from 
their  own  number.  The  directors  elect  their  officials 
usually  from  their  own  number,  choose  their  advis- 
ory committees,  appoint  their  employees,  and  gener- 
ally conduct  the  business  of  the  company.  Not  al- 
ways are  the  largest  stockholders  elected  as  direc- 
tors, nor  as  President  or  leading  officials  of  the  com- 
pany as  a  whole,  but  usually  effort  is  made  to  select 
the  most  fit  or  capable  for  all  of  these  positions. 


140         MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

When  old  officials  die,  usually  the  next  in  seniority 
of  service  or  in  supposed  capability  are  chosen  in 
their  stead.  The  same  should  be  the  case  with  gov- 
ernments. 

The  qualified  voters  should  chose  only  the  lower 
bodies  or  boards  of  control  in  municipalities,  in 
states  and  in  nations.  These  bodies  or  boards 
should  in  bi-cameral  systems  (which  are  best)  select 
from  their  own  number  the  higher  or  advisory 
board,  and  the  last  named  board  should  select  from 
its  own  number  the  executive  or  President,  who 
should  not  be  younger  than  50  nor  older  than  70 
years.  Vacancies  could  be  filled  by  alternates,  sub- 
sequent elections  or  otherwise.  There  is  no  more 
reason  why  the  qualified  electors  (who  stand  to  the 
municipality,  the  state  or  the  nation  as  do  the  stock- 
holders to  a  corporation)  should  elect  or  appoint  all 
officials  or  minor  employees  than  there  is  why  the 
same  function  should  be  exercised  by  the  stock- 
holders of  a  company,  but  there  are  reasons  why 
they  should  not. 

1st.  The  stockholders  cannot  as  well  judge  or 
pass  upon  fitness  or  capacity  as  can  the  directors 
or  executive. 

2nd.  They  cannot  as  well  determine  their  worthi- 
ness for  retention.  These  and  other  reasons  apply 
to  the  qualified  elector  or  voter. 

The  lower  body  or  board  would  usually  select  as 
members  of  the  higher  those  in  longest  service  and 
of  known  capability,  just  as  members  and  chairmen 
of  important  committees  are  now  chosen  or  selected 
to  perform  these  important  duties.  The  higher  body 
would  usually  chose  or  select  as  executive  a  man 
similarly  qualified,  so  that  the  tendency  would  be 
to  increase  the  capability  as  they  increased  the  re- 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY         141 

sponsibility.  Neither  the  Executive  nor  the  Advis- 
ory branch  of  the  Legislative  Department  of  a  Gov- 
ernment should  be  chosen  directly  by  the  voters,  be- 
cause a  temptation  (often  irresistible)  exists,  caus- 
ing aspirants  for  these  offices  to  do  acts  and  things 
that  are  often  wrong,  and  which  would  not  other- 
wise be  done,  calculated  to  popularize  themselves 
for  election  or  succession.  Popular  opinion  can  se- 
cure responsive  expression  quickly  enough  through 
the  popular  Assembly. 

An  experienced  member  of  the  lower  body  usually 
makes  a  better  member  of  the  higher  or  advisory 
body  than  does  an  inexperienced  one,  and  an  exper- 
ienced man  who  has  been  a  member  of  both  of  these 
bodies  makes  a  better  executive  than  a  man  who 
has  served  in  neither  or  even  one  of  these  bodies. 
In  other  words  a  man  vrsed  in  affairs  and  practical 
workings  of  a  governmental  corporation,  or,  rather, 
a  politician,  (however  opprobious  that  term  may  be 
in  the  opinion  of  many)  is,  if  honest  and  competent, 
far  better  than  any  non-politician  can  be,  other 
things  equal,  for  continuance  in  and  promotion 
under  any  political  system.  Whilst  business  meth- 
ods should  be  used  in  all  governmental  corporations, 
it  does  not  follow  that  a  successful  merchant  would 
make  a  better  mayor  of  a  great  city  than  an  honest 
and  capable  politician;  because  the  former  can  not 
be  as  familiar  as  the  latter  with  the  details  and 
minutia  of  that  corporation.  A  successful  manu- 
facturer would  not  necessarily  make  as  good  a  rail- 
road president  as  an  employee  or  director  of  that 
corporation,  who  had  achieved  less  business  success 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  that  term,  but  who  was 
familiar  with  the  detail  operation  of  said  company. 
Neither  does  it  often  happen  that  a  Cincinnatus 


142          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

taken  from  the  plow  would  make  as  good  a  gover- 
nor, other  things  equal,  as  a  state  assembly  man 
who  has  also  passed  through  the  experience  of  a 
state  senator.  Neither  is  a  naval  or  military  hero 
who  has  recently  "won  the  bubble  reputation  even 
in  the  cannon's  mouth "  would  likely  to  make  as  good 
a  president  as  a  man  schooled  in  statescraft  by  con- 
tact and  experience  with  men  and  measures  in  both 
the  lower  and  higher  legislative  bodies.  More  than 
this,  the  system  herein  proposed  not  only  tends  to- 
ward increased  ability  apace  with  increased  respon- 
sibility but  it  distinctly  individualizes  governmental 
corporations  and  prevents  selection  and  promotion 
by  popular  caprice.  Often  a  brilliant  congressman  is 
nominated  for  governor  of  his  state  when  he  may 
have  served  so  long  in  the  national  assembly  as  to 
be  wholly  out  of  touch  with  the  affairs  of  said  state. 
Often  state  officials  are  chosen  wholly  on  national 
issues,  and  a  successful  candidate  for  Governor  is 
often  nominated  for  President.  Men  achieving  no- 
toriety in  matters  wholly  foreign  to  statescraft,  are 
elected  to  positions  requiring  practice  and  exper- 
ience in  governmental  affairs.  But  perhaps  one  of 
the  greatest  benefits  that  would  be  accomplished  by 
the  promotion  system  would  be  its  tendency  to  pre- 
vent legislative  log-rolling.  Members  of  the  higher 
bodies  would  not  be  distinctly  localized.  According 
to  present  methods  a  member  from  one  ward  of  a 
city,  county  of  a  state,  or  congressman  from  a  dis- 
trict, can  say  to  his  fellow  member  from  some  other 
ward,  county  or  district,  "you  favor  my  appropria- 
tion and  I  will  favor  yours/'  The  alderman,  the 
state  or  United  States  senator  will  favor  his  own 
locality  or  state  hence  many  iniquitous  measures 
are  thus  log-rolled  through,  the  only  check  on  same 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY         143 

being  the  veto  of  the  executive.  Under  the  proposed 
plan  not  only  the  executive  but  the  higher  body  also 
would  be  free,  in  most  cases,  from  any  local  bias, 
and  local  measures  would  pass  on  merit  only,  or,  at 
least,  that  would  be  the  tendency. 

Local  initiative  and  representation  is  not  neces- 
sary in  the  "Advisory"  branch  of  a  legislative  body 
nor  in  the  executive;  but,  on  the  contrary,  the  "Ad- 
visory" characteristics  and  functions  of  the  higher 
body  are  rendered  less  efficient  by  local  recognition 
therein.  The  best  plan  is  to  elect  the  lower  body 
by  votes  qualified  as  proposed  and  then  promote 
from  that  body  to  the  higher  and  from  it  to  the 
executive. 

A  government  thus  constituted  would  be  con- 
ducted not  only  on  business  principles,  but  on  evolu- 
tionary principles.  Excellence  in  all  things  is  a 
growth,  not  a  manufacture.  If  there  is  any  differ- 
ence between  a  so-called  politician  who  is  often  an- 
athematized and  often  deservedly  so,  and  a  so-called 
statesman  who  is  often  apotheosized  but  never  de- 
servedly so,  it  is  a  matter  of  experience 
and  growth,  other  things  equal.  Men  schooled 
in  affairs  of  business  corporations  are  the 
best  men  to  select  and  to  promote  in  those  corpora- 
tions, and  the  same  is  true  of  governmental  corpora- 
tions. If  the  idea  so  universally  prevalent  in  the 
human  mind,  as  it  is  at  present  evolved  (and  which 
has  been  handed  down  from  antiquity  as  a  relic  of 
divinely  appointed  kings)  that  there  is  anything 
particularly  honorable  in  serving  in  a  governmental 
position,  could  be  eliminated  these  servants  (for 
such  alone  they  are)  would  be  more  efficient  and  ser- 
viceable. The  idea  that  the  incumbent  is  a  ruler 


144          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

should  vanish.  Often  the  most  exalted  is  only  a 
figure  head,  an  incarnation  of  the  idea  of  sovereignty 
— an  animated  flag — around  which  enthusiastic 
supporters  of  they  know  not  what,  rally,  fight,  bleed 
and  die.  The  incumbent  should  be,  not  the  figure 
head,  but  the  directing  head  for  the  time  being,  of 
the  business  of  the  governmental  corporation — the 
Helmsman  as  it  were— or  "THE  TIMONEER" 
(whether  he  be  a  TIMOCRAT,  or  an  autocrat  or  a 
democrat)  and  the  sooner  that  Timocratic  or  some 
means  and  methods  other  than  monarchical  succes- 
sion or  Democratic-Republican  Boss-Oligarchic  so- 
called  election  are  adopted  to  place  and  keep  good 
and  capable  TIMONEERS  at  the  helm,  the  sooner 
will  those  functions  called  "Governmental"  be  per- 
formed in  keeping  with  those  evolutionary  agencies 
which  alone  bring  about  the  best  adjustment  in  all 
things  from  the  Cosmos  to  the  Socios,  and  which 
alone  institute  and  perpetuate  Equitable  Relativity 
instead  of  Monarchy  or  Inequitable  Equality. 

One  of  the  greatest,  if  not  the  greatest,  troubles 
with  which  the  whole  world  is  cursed  to-day  is  too 
much  government.  People  do  not  realize  how  little 
of  it  they  actually  need  and  how  much  of  it  they 
could  dispense  with.  When  we  reflect  and  consider 
how  very  few  of  us  who  are  quiet  and  orderly  know 
that  there  is  a  government  except  when  we  pay 
taxes  (about  two  thousand  million  of  which  go  to 
support  this  unnecessary  system)  it  is  surprising 
that  we  tolerate  it  beyond  those  limitations  which 
offer  no  revenue  to  prompt  private  endeavor,  or  for 
protection  and  arbitration — policemen  and  courts. 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY         145 


THE  JUDICIARY. 

If  there  are  any  public  officials  who  are  worthy  of 
being  called  "Honorable"  it  should  be  extended  to 
the  JUDICIARY,  and,  with  respect  to  this  most  im- 
portant function,  our  present  political  systems  are 
most  inadequate  incongruous  and  absurd.  More 
and  worse  than  this :  they  are  ofttimes  infamous  and 
debased.  By  far  the  greatest,  in  fact,  the  fatal  ob- 
jection to  so-called  democracy  (really  only  boss  oli- 
garchism)  is  the  prostitution  of  the  Judiciary,  and, 
next  to  this  is  the  government  of  large  cities.  Judges 
are  not  the  creators  but  the  arbitrators  of  our 
causes  and  differences.  They  should  be  not  only 
efficient  but,  as  nearly  as  possible,  absolutely  inde- 
pendent and  non-biased.  In  the  absolute  or  to  the 
extent  of  perfection,  independence  and  non-bias  are 
not  possible,  but  as  long  as  judicial  positions  are 
subject  to  popular  caprice  and  BOSS  OLIGARCH- 
ISM,  a  reasonable  approach  to  these  essential  quali- 
fications is  almost  an  absurdity  in  thought :  Judicial 
positions  in  the  United  States  of  America  do  not 
carry  adequate  compensation.  There  are  few  great 
lawyers,  who,  from  a  pecuniary  standpoint,  can  af- 
ford to  accept  a  judgeship.  True,  great  minds  sel- 
dom covet  riches,  but  they  should  not  make  sacri- 
fices. "To  lapse  in  fullness"  is  not  only  "sorer" 
but  less  likely  than  "to  lie  for  need,"  and  indepen- 
dence is  encouraged  when  the  "needful"  is  assured. 

Complaints  might  be  made  that  the  appointing 
and  confirming  power  as  proposed  herein  might  be 
prejudiced  or  biased  by  personal  favoritism  or 
otherwise.  Once  the  judiciary  was  installed,  the 
appointing  power  would  be  confined,  as  far  as  possi- 


146          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

ble,  to  the  lower  judgeships  only,  the  HIGHEE 
would  hold  position  by  PROMOTION  from  the 
lower,  which  would  mean  experience,  which  would 
usually  mean  fitness.  This  would  prevent  favorit- 
ism and  give  time  for  competency  or  incompetency 
to  become  manifest.  To  prevent  a  tendency  toward 
superannuation  the  age  of  retirement  could  be  made 
earlier  and  compulsory.  Judges  should  be  remov- 
able, not  by  popular  recall,  but  just  as  legislative 
acts  are  repealable — by  the  power  that  creates  them. 
If  the  power  that  creates  is  not  fit  to  remove,  it  was 
not  fit  to  create.  The  created  cannot  be  greater 
than  the  creator,  and  the  very  fact  that  the  public 
is  not  deemed  fit  to  recall  or  remove  is  conclusive 
proof  that  it  should  not  be  deemed  fit  to  create  or 
elect.  To  poise  the  even  scales  of  justice  requires 
the  best  processes  of  the  human  mind,  because  there 
are  biases  that  are  traceable  even  back  into  remote 
ancestry.  In  the  ultimate,  human  baseness  results 
from  human  incompetence — in  fact  one  of  the  wisest 
men  in  the  world  once  said  that  l  i  a  knave  was  only 
a  fool  by  a  circumbendibus."  In  other  words  a 
really  wise  man  knows  too  much  to  be  a  knave. 
There  is,  of  course,  no  OMNISCIENT  man,  but  in 
our  judges  we  want  men,  who,  by  being  placed  as 
far  above  bias  as  possible,  and,  who,  by  being  as 
brainy  as  possible,  and  as  independent  and  exper- 
ienced as  possible,  will  give  us  the  most  equitable 
decisions  that  are  possible. 

Nevertheless,  it  must  be  remembered  that  a  judge 
is  only  a  human  being — bone  of  the  same  bone  and 
flesh  of  the  same  flesh  with  the  balance  of  us.  There 
is  no  Divinity  that  doth  hedge  him  as  there  is  none 
that  doth  hedge  a  king.  Many  of  the  musty  forms 
and  ceremonies  that  .are  still  retained  in  the  pro- 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY         147 

cesses  of  our  courts  and  the  obsequiousness  that  is 
indulged  in  (often  insincerely  and  ridiculously)  be- 
fore the  wearer  of  a  toga  or  a  wig  is  but  a  relic  of 
ancient  ignorance  and  superstitution.  The  decisions 
of  our  highest  courts  are  by  no  means  infallible,  and, 
when  judges  disagree  (as  they  often  do)  all  may 
be  wrong,  and,  certainly,  some  of  them  are  wrong. 

However,  courts  of  so-called  justice  are  the  near- 
est approach  to  actual  justice  that  our  present  civili- 
zation warrants.  All  we  can  do  is  to  improve  upon 
and  make  them  better  than  they  are.  Power  exer- 
cised by  courts  is  often  misused  and  abused,  but, 
against  this  there  is  no  better  remedy  than  wisdom 
and  non-bias,  because  some  discretionary  power 
must  exist. 

Complication  of  process  and  technicality  of  proce- 
dure are  but  the  results  of  that  multiplication  of  ef- 
fects that  is  consequent  upon  all  long  continued 
movements  or  practices.  At  times  it  is  necessary  to 
sweep  away  this  old  multiformity  and  substitute  for 
it  a  new  uniformity  as  is  done  in  nature  throughout 
its  rhythmical  cycle.  All  uniformity  tends  toward 
instability,  hence  toward  multiformity  which  is  us- 
ually more  stable,  hence  more  difficult  of  dislodge- 
ment.  Such  has  become  the  complication  in  process 
of  our  so-called  courts  of  justice  that  that  sacred 
word  could  almost  as  well  be  associated  with  a  mon- 
tebank  as  a  court.  Instead  of  a  recourse  to  be 
sought  it  is  a  peril  to  be  shunned.  Precedent  usu- 
ally exercises  more  power  than  logic  and  influence 
more  force  than  law.  In  many  cases  money  is  more 
potent  than  all  other  considerations.  An  elective 
judiciary,  depending  upon  a  boss  oligarchy  must  al- 
ways be  little,  if  anything  more,  than  a  mere  sem- 
blance of  justice.  However,  men  are  only  men  and 


148          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

their  institutions  are  usually  the  best  that  their  im- 
perfect natures  can  devise.  The  best  judicial  sys- 
tem is  that  which  tends  toward  the  greatest  wisdom 
and  non-bias.  Wrongdoing  in  all  stations  of  life 
is  largely  the  result  of  the  imperfections  of  men 
which  appear  as  often  as  inherent  baseness  or  pre- 
meditated obliquity.  Too  often,  however,  there  ex- 
ists on  the  bench  or  among  the  chosen  twelve  a  thief 
or  fool  or  two,  who  is  guiltier  than  him  they  try,  and 
the  cost  of  administering  so-called  justice  is  often 
much  greater  than  the  value  of  the  cause  adjudi- 
cated. 

THE  LAWS  AND  LITIGATION. 

Laws  cannot  be  enforced  nor  justice  administered 
with  absolute  impartiality  under  any  human  system 
because  human  beings  are  not  perfect  nor  free  from 
bias  caused  by  one  influence  or  another. 

If  "Equitable  Relativity"  was  the  basis  of  our 
systems,  as  it  some  day  must  be,  then  the  ends  of 
justice  would  be  subserved. 

If  that  class  of  our  citizens  called  LAWYEES, 
who  live  largely  from  the  worldly  contentions  of 
their  fellow  men,  and  who  often  aggravate  rather 
than  assuage  those  contentions,  were  all  JUDI- 
CIALLY MINDED,  then  there  would  be  much  less 
litigation  because  no  lawyer  would  then  take  any 
case,  which,  as  a  judge,  he  would  decide  against 
himself.  Be  it  said,  however,  to  the  dishonor  of 
the  profession,  that  almost  any  practitioner  at  any 
bar  will,  for  a  sufficiently  large  cash  retainer,  take 
almost  any  case,  be  the  same  black  or  white,  wrong 
or  right,  even  in  his  own  judgement. 

Under  the  present  elective  judicial  system  usually 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY         149 

the  POOREST,  NOT  THE  BEST,  legal  talent  is 
chosen  to  the  judiciary. 

Until  recently*  membership  of  the  appointive 
United  States  Supreme  Court  has  been  almost 
wholly  POLITICAL.  Fortunately,  wisdom  in  selec- 
tion, rather  than  political  bias,  has  been  to  a  greater 
extent  the  prompting  motive  of  our  recent  execu- 
tives. 

Since,  usually  the  weakest  lawyers  are,  by  the 
elective  machinery,  elevated  to  judgeships,  naturally 
the  strongest  lawyers  who  practice  before  them  have 
a  greater  influence  upon  their  decisions  than  such 
lawyers  would  have  on  abler  judges.  As  the  mass 
of  the  people  cannot  employ  the  ablest  attorneys, 
it  follows  that  the  masses  do  not  get  equitable  rep- 
resentation, hence  do  not  get  "even-handed  justice " 
in  the  administration  of  the  law. 

This  cannot  be  obviated  except  by  ABLER  AND 
UNBIASED  JUDGES. 

In  order  to  avoid  the  "law's  delay7'  all  lawyers 
might,  when  admitted  to  practice,  be  given  limited 
judicial  powers.  Applicants  for  admission  to  the 
bar  who  are  not  fitted  or  qualified  for  these  powers 
should  be  rejected.  This  would  tend  also  to  elevate 
the  character  and  ability  of  practitioners.  The 
practice  should  then  be  to  immediately  assemble 
ARBITRATION  or,  as  it  were,  Oyer  and  Terminer 
Courts  to  try  all  cases,  by  calling  in  one  or  three 
other  lawyers  to  be  chosen  by  the  litigants  or  by 
their  attorneys.  Their  compensation  could  in  some 
proper  way  be  provided  for,  and  all  cases  should  be 
thus  tried  before  they  go  to  the  regularly  constituted 
courts  at  all.  Thus  the  courts  would  adjudicate 
APPEAL  CASES  only.  Many  would  never  be  ap- 
pealed, and  small  cases  should  not  be  appealable. 


150         MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

This  system  would  immeasurably  relieve  the 
courts,  and  in  many  cases  justice  would  be  arrived 
at  as  well  if  not  better  and  certainly  more  expedi- 
tiously  than  by  the  present  congested  system.  In 
the  very  nature  of  things  a  limited  number  of  judges' 
cannot  try  an  UNLIMITED  number  of  cases,  and 
since  judges  are  but  men,  they  do  not  differ  in 
ability  and  excellence  from  other  men  simply  be- 
cause they  have  been,  by  some  political  boss,  ele- 
vated to  a  judgeship  that  they  should,  in  many  cases 
never  have  heard  of  or  seen.  What  blacker  crime 
could  be  committed  than  an  aspirant  for  judicial 
honors  paying  to  the  boss  politician  a  money  con- 
sideration (as  has  been  done)  or  a  pledge  for  favor 
as  a  price  for  nomination  and  election? 

The  system  suggested  above,  with  an  appointive 
and  promotive  judiciary,  would  materially  aid  both 
justice  and  expedition. 

THE  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

If  REPRESENTATIVE  GOVERNMENT  is 
worthy  of  retention,  then  the  INITIATIVE  and 
REFERENDUM,  which  hampers  and  circumscribes 
it,  is  not  worthy  of  consideration.  It  is  probable 
that  the  percentage  of  ignorant  and  incompetent 
voters  in  any  community  is  as  great  as  in  the  Legis- 
latures which  they  elect.  Unless,  therefore,  both  the 
INITIATIVE  and  REFERENDUM  were  confined 
to  the  higher  or  better  elements  of  said  voters,  the 
result  would  be  INCREASED  CUMBERSOME- 
NESS  WITH  NO  INCREASED  EFFICIENCY. 
To  improve  legislation  we  must  improve  legislators, 
which  means  that  we  must  improve  the  ELECTOR- 
ATE that  chooses  legislators. 


TIMOCRACY  VS.  DEMOCRACY    151 

All  efforts  to  improve  the  super-structure  of  so- 
ciety whilst  yet  the  sub-structure  is  illogical  and  un- 
natural, will  fail  to  accomplish  any  permanent  good, 
and  may  entail  serious  harm. 

Equitable  Relativity  in  place  of  inequitable  equal- 
ity would  be  far  more  efficacious  than  INITIATIVE 
and  REFERENDUM. 

People  who  are  not  fit  to  elect  competent  or  honest 
Legislators  are  not  fit  to  initiate,  or  act  as  referees 
on  current  legislation. 

REDUNDANT  LEGISLATION. 

There  is  scarcely  anything  on  earth  of  which  there 
is  so  great  and  damaging  a  redundance  as  of  legisla- 
tive enactments.  Many  are  pernicious,  inefficacious 
and  supererogatory,  and  quite  half  of  old  laws  are 
obsolete  and  useless,  as  is  conclusively  shown  by 
the  flood  of  measures  to  repeal  other  measures  which 
are  not  now  considered  worthy  of  retention. 

As  well  had  we  seek  to  ' t  strike  flat  the  thick  rotun- 
dity of  the  earth,  to  crush  its  rock-ribbed  sides  to- 
gether and  rear  mountains  in  the  seas"  as  to  at- 
tempt by  legislation  to  regulate  the  grievances 
under  which  humanity  groans. 

The  people  do  not  appreciate  to  the  extent  that 
they  should  the  fact  that  ALL  ACTION  MUST  BE 
FOLLOWED  BY  REACTION.  To  place  onerous 
conditions  on  investment,  results  in  NON-INVEST- 
MENT, and  to  encourage  pestiferous  interference 
with  business  affairs  results  in  the  curtailment  of 
those  affairs.  When,  by  frugality,  energy,  enter- 
prise and  perspicacity  certain  men  have  grown  rich 
in  the  prosecution  of  certain  enterprises,  a  clamor 


152          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

goes  out  that  these  enterprises  should  be  owned  by 
the  Government  or  regulated  by  legislative  enact- 
ments— in  other  words  that  the  property  of  some 
men  because  they  have  handled  it  wisely  and  eco- 
nomically and  reinvested  their  accumulations  in 
useful  things  to  which  the  people  have  access  at 
currently  lower  rates,  should  be  turned  over  to  all 
men  because  of  their  incompetency,  unfrugality,  im- 
prudence and  waste. 

Verily  "the  earth  hath  bubbles  as  the  water  hath 
and  these  are  of  them." 

To  the  popular  elector  is  often  presented  a  ticket, 
threshed  out  by  the  Boss  Oligarchy  of  each  politi- 
cal party,  containing  a  number  of  candidates  to  be 
voted  for  to  fill  a  number  of  minor  positions  not 
one  of  which  may  have  been  selected  with  reference 
to  fitness  nor  competency  but  usually  all  selected 
with  reference  to  subserviency  to  the  autocratic 
Boss.  If  to  the  stockholders  of  a  Eailway  Company 
or  any  other  association  at  its  annual  election  there 
should  be  presented  by  the  officials  in  control  a 
ticket  containing  the  names  of  candidates  for  switch- 
men, brakemen,  stokers  and  the  like,  a  look  of  sur- 
prise would  be  detected  on  the  faces  of  the  voters. 

Yet  this  is  just  what  is  done  in  municipal  govern- 
ments especially,  and,  as  a  necessary  and  unavoid- 
able result,  municipalities  are  the  greatest  subjects 
of  mal-administration,  corruption  and  robbery. 
There  is  no  greater  reason  why  all  these  minor  offi- 
cials should  be  chosen  by  popular  ballot  than  there 
is  why  all  measures  of  legislation  should  be  simi- 
larly adopted.  In  New  York  in  1910  the  ballot  was 
about  four  feet  square  and  in  Chicago  it  reached 
"from  the  eyes  to  the  ground." 

The  qualified  voter  should  elect  only  the  members 


TIMOCEACY  VS.  DEMOCRACY    153 

of  the  lower  board  of  control.  From  this  should 
issue  all  other  officials.  Responsibility  and  account- 
ability would  then  be  definitely  fixed  and  localized. 
The  minor  officials  would  be  chosen  with  reference 
to  fitness  and  capacity  and  insubordination  would  be 
punished  by  summary  discharge. 

Voting  thus  confined  to  membership  of  these 
boards  would  be  simplified  and  purified  and  corrupt 
combinations  of  Boss  Oligarchies  would  be  abso- 
lutely prevented.  The  business  world  would  not  be 
subject  to  political  upheavals  and  damaging  changes, 
and  all  public  duties  would  be  more  wisely  and  hon- 
estly conducted.  The  system  would  not  remove  the 
governing  power  too  far  from  the  people,  but,  if 
properly  arranged  its  accountability  to  the  people 
would  be  more  direct  than  now.  Members  of  the 
lower  body  (with  an  alternate,  if  need  be,  to  serve 
in  case  of  promotion  or  death)  could  be  chosen 
EVERY  YEAR.  From  it,  in  bi-cameral  govern- 
ments, the  members  of  the  higher  body  could  be 
chosen  one-third,  one-quarter  or  one-sixth  every 
year,  and  from  the  higher  the  executive  could  be 
chosen  for  3,  4,  or  6  years,  all  eligible  to  re-election 
and  all  removable  at  any  time  by  the  body  that 
chose  them,  and  removal  should  be  exercised  as 
freely  as  choice.  If  the  lower  body  was  elected  an- 
nually there  would  be  no  need  for  recall  by  the  peo- 
ple. The  lower  body,  however,  should  meet  within 
as  short  a  time  as  possible  after  its  election. 

One  of  the  most  absurd  and,  ofttimes,  one  of  the 
most  pernicious  features  of  our  present  system  is 
the  lapse  of  thirteen  months  between  the  date  of 
election  and  the  time  of  assembling  of  the  newly 
elected  congress.  This  renders  it  possible  for  the 
repudiated  party  to  enact  legislation  directly  in  con- 


154          MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

flict  with  the  mandate  of  the  people,  and  this  power 
is  often  used  to  the  great  abuse  and  damage  of  the 
country.  True,  the  executive  can  call  an  extra  ses- 
sion, but  when  this  official  is  in  sympathy  with  the 
repudiated  party,  he  is  often  in  sympathy  with  the 
very  measures  that  the  people  .have  repudiated. 
There  is  scarcely  a  constitutional  government  on 
earth,  except  our  own,  where  a  repudiated  party 
would  dare  to  continue  to  impose  its  policies  on  the 
people.  A  repudiated  party  in  most  civilized  coun- 
tries resigns  at  once.  The  fact  that  under  our  sys- 
tem it  is  possible  for  such  a  one  to  continue  to  legis- 
late is  another  evidence  of  the  archaic  condition  of 
our  constitution  and  fundamental  law. 

Under  the  proposed  system  this  abuse  would  be 
entirely  remedied.  A  majority  of  both  bodies  and 
the  executive  could  do  anything,  not  unconstitu- 
tional ;  two-thirds  of  the  two,  without  the  executive, 
could  do  the  same,  and  five-sixths  of  the  lower  body 
might,  with  safety,  be  supreme.  Eegardless  of  their 
tenures  of  office,  officials  not  elected  annually  should 
be  removable  just  as  laws  are  repealable,  because 
the  object  of  government  is  TO  EEPEESENT  THE 
PEOPLE,  and  hostile  officials  are  even  more  objec- 
tionable than  hostile  LAWS.  The  proposed  system 
could  be  adopted  as  to  the  legislatures  of  states  and 
as  to  city  governments,  and  this  is  as  far  as  it  could 
go  under  our  present  constitution  because  of  the 
clause  that  no  State  shall  be  deprived  of  two  SENA- 
TOES,  and  because  this  clause  cannot  be  altered  or 
changed  by  amendment,  which  imposes  on  us  a  con- 
dition that  is  a  travesty  on  representative  govern- 
ment, and  the  pernicious  effects  thereof  have  already 
been  seriously  felt  in  legislation  alike  inimical  to 
wealth  and  population. 


TIMOCRACY  VS.  DEMOCRACY    155 

As  a  NATIONAL  system  it  would  be  quite  as 
equitable  and  beneficial  as  for  state  and  municipal 
governments,  but  at  present  less  practicable  of  adop- 
tion. To  be  adopted  NATIONALLY  the  constitu- 
tion would  have  to  be  abolished.  States  often  adopt 
new  constitutions ;  why  should  the  NATIONAL  IN- 
STRUMENT be  too  sacred  to  be  kept  apace  with 
the  progress  of  civilization? 

THE  UNEEPEESENTATIVENESS  AND  ILLOG- 
ICALITY OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 
SENATE. 

All  things  should  be  what  they  purport  to  be.  If 
a  government  purports  to  be  representative  it  should 
be  representative,  which  of  course  implies  that  it 
should  be  proportionately  so  on  some  agreed  bases, 
be  that  bases  population  or  wealth  or  area  or  any 
other  bases.  The  United  States  Senate  is  propor- 
tionately representative  on  no  bases  whatsoever. 
The  fathers  of  the  republic  were  jealous  of  each 
other;  they  feared  encroachment  on  their  local 
rights.  They  appeared  to  ignore  the  fact  that  the 
national  government  was  intended  to  be  in  no  sense 
a  local  affair,  but  that  it  was  designed  to  deal  with 
concerns  wholly  national  in  their  bearing  and  suze- 
rainty. Clinging  to  their  local  prejudice  and  jeal- 
ousy they  established  the  principle  that  the  higher 
or  advisory  branch  of  the  National  Legislature  should 
contain  two  members  from  each  of  certain  por- 
tions or  land  area,  whether  the  said  portions  be  large 
or  small  or  whether  they  contain  many  or  few  inhab- 
itants, or  whether  they  were  rich  or  poor,  fertile  or 
desert.  They  decreed  that  at  this  utterly  capricious 
and  illogical  bases  of  so-called  representation  should 


156          MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

never  be  altered  by  amendment.  With  equal  imagi- 
nary wisdom  they  also  decreed  that  the  African 
slave  trade  should  not  be  abolished  and  that  this 
provision  also  should  never  be  altered  by  amend- 
ment. The  conditions  relating  to  the  United  States 
Senate  are  as  obsolete  to-day  as  are  those  relating 
to  the  African  slave  trade,  and  the  continuation  of 
State  governments  (which  causes  the  absurdity)  is 
about  as  obsolete  as  either.  On  the  basis  of  area  the 
State  of  Nevada  would  be  entitled  to  two  or  three 
times  as  many  Senators  as  the  State  of  New  York, 
but  on  the  bases  of  population  or  wealth  the  City 
of  New  York  alone  would  be  entitled  to  thirty  or 
forty  times  as  many  Senators  as  the  State  of  Ne- 
vada. As  the  nation  grows  and  as  population  be- 
comes crystalized  these  inequalities  will  cause  great 
injustice  and  perhaps  much  antagonism.  Already 
there  have  been  demonstrations  of  the  tendency  of 
these  partially  populated  and  comparatively  pauper- 
ized States  to  impose  conditions  upon  the  whole  na  - 
tion  or  to  prevent  conditions  from  being  imposed 
that  were  very  prejudicial  or  highly  beneficial,  as  the 
case  may  be,  to  the  interests  of  the  vast  majority. 
Silver  purchase  bills,  railway  land  grants,  unwise 
currency  measures  and  discriminating  systems  of 
taxation  are  samples  of  these.  As  time  goes  on  the 
effect  of  this  inequality  will  become  more  glaring 
and  galling.  Upon  no  basis  of  reasoning  is  it  right. 
The  system  proposed  herein  or  something  similar 
in  corrective  tendency  must  some  day  be  adopted 
to  alter  this  obvious  wrong,  or  there  may  with  great 
reason  again  be  instituted  efforts  directed  toward 
the  dismemberment  of  the  Union.  According  to  the 
census  of  1910  the  total  population  was  about  91,- 
972,266.  Of  the  forty-eight  States  sending  ninety- 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY        157 

six  Senators,  there  were  twenty-four  States  send- 
ing forty-eight  Senators,  or  half  of  the  entire  body. 
These  twenty-four  States  contained  a  population  of 
only  about  16,569,926,  hence  per  capita  their  power 
is  five  times  as  great  as  the  twenty-four  large  States. 
In  accumulated  wealth  the  disparity  is  even 
greater,  and  in  both  respects  it  appears  to  be  becom- 
ing still  greater.  In  many  other  features  the  con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  of  America,  suitable 
for  conditions  that  existed  over  a  century  ago,  is 
now  obsolete.  Since  its  alteration  by  amendment  is 
very  difficult — impossible  as  to  Senatorial  repre- 
sentation— it  is  scarcely  possible  that  another  gen- 
eration can  pass  without  its  complete  extirpation 
and  the  substitution  in  its  stead  of  an  up-to-date 
instrument  which  must  not  only  prevent  such  ab- 
surdities as  now  exist  in  the  Senate,  but  it  must 
remove  all  doubt  as  to  the  right  to  pursue  a  world- 
wide governmental  policy  which  must  go  pari  passu 
with  a  worldwide  commercial  policy,  which  latter 
must  go  pari  passu  with  civilized  progress.  Unless 
retrogadation  sets  in,  the  whole  of  the  North  Ameri- 
can continent,  with  its  contiguous  islands  at  least, 
must  become  one  nation,  and  one  of  the  main  ob- 
stacles to  its  consummation  to-day  is  the  inade- 
quacy of  our  constitution  and  fundamental  law.  It 
is  better  to  change  the  laws  to  fit  the  times  than  to 
try  to  change  the  times  to  fit  the  laws. 

THE  ELECTORAL  COLLEGE. 

The  electoral  college  is  likewise  illogical  and  about 
as  glaringly  so  as  is  the  United  States  Senate.  It 
also  is  a  result  of  obsolete  State  pride,  and  should 
be  relegated  to  the  tombs  of  antiquity.  Its  objection- 


158          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

able  features  are  more  conspicuously  manifest  in 
the  nomination  of  candidates  than  in  their  election. 
States  that  can  supply  no  electoral  votes  often  de- 
termine the  nomination  of  candidates.  States  that 
are  evenly  balanced  politically  command  candidates 
on  account  of  supposed  availability,  to  the  exclusion 
of  all  other  States,  however  suitable  a  resident  of 
either  of  them  may  be  to  become  the  Timoneer  or 
helmsman  of  the  nation.  This  causes  the  local  bosses 
of  said  States  to  become  almost  omnipotent,  as  in 
the  case  of  New  York,  Ohio,  and  at  times  other  large 
commonwealths.  The  whole  nation  is  therefore  often 
obliged  to  accept  as  a  candidate  to  be  voted  for,  the 
personal  favorite  of  some  local  boss.  Since  the  can- 
didate of  one  or  the  other  of  only  two  parties  is 
usually  elected,  it  is  tantamount  to  the  actual  selec- 
tion of  a  President  by  one  local  boss,  and  yet  ninety 
to  one  hundred  millions  of  people  think  they  are 
choosing  the  supreme  official  of  the  nation.  The 
fact  is  that  their  choice  is  more  a  matter  of  their 
own  imaginations  than  of  any  tangible  reality.  It 
is  surprising  how  very  little  the  whole  people  have 
to  do  in  selecting  any  prominent  official.  This  boss 
recognition  in  doubtful  and  determining  States  is 
practically  unavoidable  under  our  present  electoral 
college  system.  As  a  remedy  it  has  been  proposed 
that  the  President  be  chosen  by  a  popular  vote. 
There  is  no  more  reason  for  electing  governors  and 
mayors  by  popular  vote  than  for  similarly  electing 
a  President;  but,  even  were  this  plan  adopted,  the 
candidate  would  be  the  nominee  of  several  bosses 
instead  of  the  doubtful  State  boss  only,  which  would 
be  but  a  slight  improvement.  Under  so-called  dem- 
ocratic republicanism,  the  boss  system  is  inevitable. 
One  who  believes  in  the  luminosity  of  the  sun  had  as 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY         159 

well  oppose  Ms  life's  sustaining  rays,  as  to  favor 
democratic  republicanism  and  oppose  the  boss  oli- 
garchies and  political  plutocracies  which  are  its  nec- 
essary concomitants.  Not  only  under  this  system 
is  the  boss  inevitable,  but  in  no  other  practical  man- 
ner could  the  machinery  of  politics  be  run,  because 
the  vast  majority  are  incompetent.  The  Socialists 
and  other  reformers  expound  their  theories  to  the 
masses  as  innocently  and  as  enthusiastically  as 
though  the  masses  really  ruled.  They  should  con- 
vert the  bosses,  and,  until  they  do,  their  propa- 
gandisms  are  like  shooting  howitzers  at  mosquitoes 
or  trying  to  strike  the  stars  with  sticks.  If,  how- 
ever, as  is  by  no  means  improbable,  the  boss  oli- 
garchies ever  do  espouse  the  cause  of  Socialism  out- 
right, the  people  who  believe  in  private  ownership 
and  controllership  of  production  and  transportation 
will  be  buried  under  a  cyclone  unless  they,  too,  or- 
ganize to  convince  the  bosses  that  these  theories  are 
wrong.  As  yet  that  controlling  class  of  politicians 
have  not  espoused  the  cause  of  Socialism,  but  they 
are  almost  a  unit  for  Fetichism,  which  may  cause 
civilized  progress  to  vanish  into  air  unless  such  a 
catastrophy  is  averted  by  timely  organization. 
These  statements  now  appear  to  be  lugubrious  and 
visionary,  but  the  whole  story  of  democratic  repub- 
licanism cannot  be  foretold  by  its  record  up  to  date. 

CONSTITUENCIES  SHOULD  BE  ENLARGED. 

If  a  century  ago  one  delegate  in  Congress  was 
rightfully  apportioned  to  about  25,000  voters,  then, 
at  the  present  time,  with  increased  facilities  for 
communication  and  transportation,  one  delegate 
could  as  well  represent  250,000  voters.  With  the 


160          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

functions  of  government  confined  to  rightful  spheres 
and  the  characteristics  of  the  people  becoming  more 
uniform,  constituencies  would  not  differ  as  radically 
as  in  the  past,  hence  there  is  less  need  for  so  many 
representatives.  A  Congress  of  300  to  400  delegates 
would  be  ample  to  properly  represent  the  constitu- 
encies of  the  entire  world  in  the  popular  branch  of 
a  world  congress,  and  sixty  to  seventy  in  the  higher 
branch  would  be  ample  for  all  functions  such  a  body 
need  perform.  As  surely  as  civilized  progress  con- 
tinues, there  must  and  will  come  a  worldwide  na- 
tionalization. Its  delegates  could  now  go  from  the 
south  to  the  Septentrion,  and  from  the  first  to  the 
one  hundred  and  eightieth  meridian  in  less  time  than 
formerly  from  Boston  to  Washington  or  from  Edin- 
burgh to  London.  Large  legislative  bodies  are  un- 
wieldly,  and  for  this  reason  are  less  representative 
than  smaller  ones,  because  business  must,  to  a  great 
extent,  be  done  by  committees  and  by  autocratic  pre- 
siding officers.  Individual  delegates  lose  their  iden- 
tity and  often  merely  echo  the  mandates  of  the  few 
who  control.  When  by  the  Sixtieth  Congress  sal- 
aries were  increased  one-half,  measures  should  have 
been  instituted  to  reduce  membership  one-half,  or  to 
double  the  size  of  constituencies.  When  States  are 
abolished,  about  thirty-nine  members  should  consti- 
tute the  advisory  body  of  the  National  Congress, 
and  about  thirteen  aldermen  would  be  ample  for 
any  city. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Monarchy  Preferable  to  Mob :  Equitable  Relativ- 
ity the  Golden  Mean:  Anarchy:  Useless  Homage  to 
Officials:  Condensed  Principles:  Science  and  Soci- 
ology: Governmental  Inefficiency:  Government  Pos- 
tal Service  Opposed:  Public  Schools  vs.  Private 
Schools:  Discrimination  Not  Avoided  by  Govern- 
ment Control:  Government  and  Railroad  Owner- 
ship: Government  and  Telegraph  Ownership:  Gov- 
ernment Paternalism:  Log  Rolling  Legislation: 
Public  Franchises  to  Private  Corporations:  Terms 
for  Franchises  to  Corporations. 

PROPOSITION  FIFTH. 

That  nothing  should  be  done  by  any  governmental 
power  which,  in  its  nature,  will  yield  a  revenue;  that 
government  should  be  supported  by  direct  taxation 
and  do  nothing  that  private  individuals  or  private 
corporations  can  do. 

The  despotism  of  a  monarch  is  quite  as  reasonable 
and  endurable  as  the  despotism  of  a  mob.  In  fact, 
if  he  be  a  sufficiently  wise  and  worthy  monarch,  his 
despotism  might  be  better  than  any  other  govern- 
mental system.  More  than  this,  there  is  some  war- 
rant for  the  despotism  of  a  monarch  because  many 
people  of  fair  intelligence  and  quality  honestly  be- 
lieve that  he  is  the  direct  representative  or  vice- 

161 


162          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

gerent  of  God  on  earth,  whereas  no  one  believes  that 
a  mob  is  such  representative  or  vice-gerent.  Speak- 
ing only  of  what  are  known  as  civilized  nations,  the 
monarchy  is  limited  either  by  paper  constitutions  or 
by  the  consensus  of  public  opinion  as  reflected  by  his 
counsellors,  so  that  tyrannical  absolutism  in  these 
nations  is  practically  unknown.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  a  democratic  republic  the  mob  or  mass  is  the 
source  from  which  power  theoretically  emanates,  as 
set  forth  in  the  oft  repeated  phrases,  "All  just 
power  comes  from  the  consent  of  the  governed," 
and  ' i  no  man  is  good  enough  to  govern  another  man 
without  that  other  man's  consent. "  The  first  should 
be  changed  so  as  to  read,  "from  the  consent  of  the 
capable  of  the  governed, "  and  the  second,  "to  gov- 
ern another  equally  capable  man  without  that  man's 
consent."  The  consent  of  those  who  are  not  capable 
of  knowing  what  it  is  to  which  they  do  consent  is 
certainly  no  consent  at  all.  An  absolutely  incom- 
petent and  ignorant  man  stands  in  about  the  same 
relation  to  a  thoroughly  competent  and  educated 
man,  as  far  as  popular  governing  is  concerned,  as  a 
child  does  to  his  father  as  far  as  domestic  governing 
is  concerned.  If,  therefore,  the  father  is  good  enough 
to  govern  his  child,  domestically  considered,  a  wise 
man  is  good  enough  to  govern  the  fool,  politically 
considered.  Just  as  in  monarchies  a  despot,  abso- 
lute or  limited,  does  not  actually  rule,  so  in  demo- 
cratic republics  the  mob  does  not  actually  rule.  In 
the  former  the  ruling  power  is  a  ministry  and  in  the 
latter  a  boss  oligarchy.  If  the  ministry  chosen  by 
the  monarch  in  response  to  public  sympathy  is  com- 
posed of  wise  and  capable  men,  it  is  far  preferable 
to  a  self-constituted  boss  oligarchy  and  their  chosen 
agents  or  officials,  who  are  usually  corrupt  and  in- 


TIMOCBACY  VS.  DEMOCRACY    163 

capable  men.  Between  a  monarchy  which,  in  civil- 
ized nations,  means  a  ministry,  and  a  democratic 
republic,  which  means  a  boss  oligarchy,  the  choice, 
except  for  the  sentiment  of  liberty,  would  likely  be 
the  former.  However,  power  does  not  emanate  from 
the  gods,  or  rather  many  people  do  not  think  that 
kings  and  emperors  are  divinely  appointed,  hence  a 
government  based  on  that  idea  is  not  suited  to  these 
people.  Power  should  not  emanate  from  the  mob, 
hence  boss  oligarchies — the  necessary  machinery  of 
democratic  republics — are  not  suited  to  people  who 
think  the  mob  should  not  be  sovereign.  Between  the 
ministry,  which  is  the  machinery  of  the  monarch, 
and  the  boss  oligarchy,  which  is  the  machinery  of  the 
mob,  a  mean  must  be  adopted  to  suit  human  beings 
who  believe  in  neither  of  the  aforesaid  extremes. 
* '  The  golden  mean  is  the  path  of  wisdom, ' '  said  Con- 
fucius. Such  a  medium  is  a  government  based  on 
Equitable  Relativity  as  nearly  as  that  can  be  prac- 
tically created.  As  has  been  stated,  this  relativity 
cannot  be  established  between  men  on  bases  of  erudi- 
tion or  intellectuality,  but  it  can  be  on  their  contri- 
bution to  government  deriving  its  support  from  tax- 
ation on  fixed  property,  and  a  ratio  thus  established 
is  practically  just  and  reasonable,  representing,  as 
it  does,  relative  ownership  in  the  governmental  cor- 
poration. //  under  a  government  thus  organized,  a 
boss  oligarchy  would  yet  exist,  it  would  be  a  wiser 
and  better  one  than  that  emanating  from  the  mob, 
ivhich  is  a  sufficient  justification  if  not  a  guarantee 
of  absolute  perfection.  Together  with  the  establish- 
ment of  a  proper  system  of  government  there  is  also 
a  necessity  of  confining  that  government  within  its 
rightful  sphere.  The  law-maker  is  often  more  harm- 
ful to  society  than  the  law-breaker.  Anarchism 


164          MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

means  "to  be  without  government,"  and  not  to  be 
in  favor  of  murder,  arson,  and  the  like.  Opposition 
to  useless  government  is  praiseworthy.  But  as  long 
as  people  live  together,  which  they  will  do  as  long 
as  they  are  by  nature  gregarious,  rules  of  conduct 
will  at  least  be  necessary.  At  times  these  rules 
would  have  to  be  enforced  by  power — by  might. 
Such  only  is  the  status  of  what  we  now  call  law. 
Complete  anarchy  is  as  illogical  as  would  be  the 
abolition  of  systematized  industrial  enterprise,  be- 
cause there  is  a  rightful  sphere  for  government, 
which  should  be  called  "servicement,"  but  there  is 
no  occasion  for  its  exaltation  or  deification,  and  the 
"pageantry,  pomp  and  circumstance  of  glorious 
war"  that  attend  coronations,  inaugurations  and 
often  the  administration  of  the  simplest  of  govern- 
mental or  " servicemental"  functions  is  but  a  foolish 
waste  of  public  wealth.  It  is  another  evidence  of 
popular  misconception  and  incompetency  and  in- 
tensifies the  idea  set  forth  in  the  memorable  words, 
"0  place,  0  form,  how  often  dost  thou  with  thy  case, 
thy  habit,  wrench  awe  from  fools  and  tie  the  wiser 
souls  to  thy  false  seeming."  If  the  army  and  navy 
features  of  governmental  operation  were  eliminated, 
there  is  scarcely  a  nation  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
that  would  be  of  more  "pith  and  moment"  than  are 
many  of  our  industrial  enterprises.  The  homage, 
therefore,  that  is  paid  to  all  governmental  officials 
(to  a  greater  or  less  degree)  is  sentimental,  illogical, 
and  often  encourages  that  "insolence  of  office"  and 
at  times  that  "law's  delay"  with  which  humanity 
has  been,  is,  and  will  be  cursed  until  business  meth- 
ods only  are  made  applicable  to  all  governmental 
affairs. 
A  simple  assemblyman  is  often  called  an  honor- 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY        165 

able,  and  the  "pregnant  hinges  of  the  knee'  are 
crooked  not  only  to  emperors  and  kings,  but  to  those 
who  are  elected  or  appointed  to  serve,  not  to  com- 
mand, save  as  an  industrial  official  must  command 
within  the  limits  of  his  necessary  authority. 

The  average  intelligence  of  public  men  who  are 
often  called  "great"  is  far  less  than  that  of  scien- 
tists, philosophers,  men  of  letters  and  captains  of 
industry,  and  their  rightful  sphere  of  usefulness  is 
by  no  means  as  important  as  it  is  usually  thought 
to  be.  To  call  a  man  "great"  for  political  or  mili- 
tary achievement  is  but  another  evidence  of  present 
human  weakness. 

GOVERNMENT  POST   OFFICE  AND  PUBLIC 
SCHOOLS. 

Assuming  that  governments  should  exercise  pro- 
tective suzerainty  over  property  and  not  business 
management  of  property,  it  necessarily  follows  that 
the  maxim  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden  is  absolutely  true, 
viz. :  '  *  That  nothing  should  be  done  by  the  general 
government  that  the  local  authorities  are  competent 
to  do,  and  nothing  by  any  governmental  power  that 
INDIVIDUALS  can  do  for  themselves." 

There  are  two  very  important  functions  that  the 
government  now  performs  in  the  United  States  of 
America,  viz.:  the  POST  OFFICE  and  PUBLIC 
EDUCATION. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  each  of  these  functions 
offers  reward  for  private  endeavor,  and  that  each 
could  be  performed  by  private  enterprise.  Why  are 
they  not  performed  by  private  enterprise? 

Simply  because  the  Socialistic  sentiment  has  pre- 
vailed to  this  extent.  How  comes  it  that  Socialism 


166          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

to  this  extent  is  preferable,  if  not  so  with  respect 
to  other  necessary  duties?  If  preferable  with  re- 
spect to  other  necessary  duties,  then  the  principles 
of  Socialism  should  be  adopted.  There  is  no  line 
of  demarcation  except  that  named  by  Mr.  Tilden, 
in  which  Timocracy  fully  concurs,  and  supplements 
the  idea  by  the  more  definite  suggestion  of  confining 
governmental  operation  to  non-compensating  enter- 
prises. 

As  an  OEIGINAL  PKOPOSITION,  therefore, 
Timocracy  would  favor  PRIVATE  OPERATION 
AND  MANAGEMENT  of  each  of  these  aforesaid 
functions.  It  appears,  however,  that  times,  condi- 
tions, and  the  consensus  of  public  opinion  are  not 
now  ripe  for  these  innovations,  and,  since  to  all  con- 
ditions that  have  long  existed  there  come  ADJUST- 
MENTS, it  is  seldom  wise  to  advocate  changes  until 
time  has  been  given  for  READJUSTMENT.  Again, 
all  propositions,  whether  for  the  DISESTABLISH- 
MENT of  existing  or  for  the  establishment  of  non- 
existing  things  should  be  subjected  to  at  least 
THREE  tests,  viz.:  ARE  THEY  RIGHT?  ARE 
THEY  PRACTICABLE  (time,  place  and  conditions 
considered)  f  and  ARE  THEY  EXPEDIENT? 

If  an  affirmative  answer  cannot  be  given  to  ALL 
THREE,  the  existing  status  should  remain  un- 
changed. The  science  of  the  PRACTICABLE  is  the 
sub-structure  of  all  action. 

It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  each  of  these  func- 
tions will  continue  to  be  Socialistically  performed 
until  the  fact  that  Socialism  is  against  the  consti- 
tution of  things  is  generally  accepted. 

Detailed  arguments  against  governmental  per- 
formance of  each  would  require  volumes  in  and  of 
themselves. 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY        167 

ON  PRINCIPLE  Timocracy  opposes  government 
operation  of  each,  but  does  not  deem  a  change  ex- 
pedient under  existing  conditions. 

"Things  by  season,  seasoned  are  to  their  right 
praise  and  true  perfection."  The  first  aim  and  ob- 
ject of  Timocracy  is  to  oppose  the  further  extension 
of  governmental  operation,  and  to  extirpate  MON- 
OPOLY in  private  operation. 

With  this  accomplished,  the  abandonment  of  gov- 
ernmental operation  in  all  fields  now  occupied  by 
it  that  offer  a  reward  for  individual  enterprise  would 
be  a  natural  and  inevitable  consequence. 

The  operation  by  government  of  any  function 
usually  results  in  nothing  other  than  the  substitu- 
tion of  TAXES  WHICH  ARE  ENFORCED  FOR 
TOLLS  WHICH  ARE  VOLUNTARY,  hence  noth- 
ing should  be  undertaken  by  governments  excepting 
duties  for  the  performance  of  which  TOLLS  are 
impracticable. 

GOVERNMENT  AND  RAILWAY  OWNERSHIP. 

The  accumulated  capital  represented  by  more  than 
230,000  miles  of  railway  in  the  United  States  of 
America  amounts  to  between  one-sixth  and  one-sev- 
enth of  the  entire  wealth  of  the  country.  The  number 
of  people  employed  in  railway  service  amounts  to 
between  one-twelfth  and  one-fourteenth  of  the  en- 
tire voting  population.  The  gross  revenues  of  the 
various  systems  amount  to  nearly  2500  million  dol- 
lare  annually,  or  about  twice  the  total  revenue  of 
the  entire  national  government.  The  proposition 
that  these  vast  enterprises  be  owned  and  operated 
by  the  government  is  too  stupendous  for  ordinary 
comprehension.  How  shall  they  be  secured  by  the 


168          MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

government?  Shall  they  be  confiscated?  Certainly 
no  fair-minded  citizen  would  advocate  such  a  propo- 
sition. Shall  they  be  bought?  This  would  involve 
an  expenditure  of  from  twelve  to  fourteen  thousand 
million  dollars,  and  an  interest  charge  of  five  to 
seven  hundred  million  dollars  per  year,  or  an  amount 
about  equal  to  the  annual  expenditure  by  the  govern- 
ment for  all  other  purposes.  The  railway  depart- 
ment would  transcend  all  the  other  branches  of  the 
public  service  combined.  If  the  business  should  be 
conducted  with  the  same  improvidence,  extrava- 
gance and  waste  that  characterizes  all  other 
branches  of  the  public  service,  that  which  now  rep- 
resents accumulated  wealth  in  the  hands  of  frugal 
private  owners,  would  become  an  engulfing  ocean 
of  bankruptcy  and  ruin.  So  loose,  unbusiness-like 
and  reckless  are  the  methods  and  management  of  the 
government  that  there  are  no  two  departments  to- 
day which  will  agree  as  to  the  exact  amount  that  is 
annually  expended  for  the  functions  that  it  now 
performs.  What  would  this  be  if  to  it  were  added 
all  the  details  of  the  management  of  14,000  million 
dollars  more,  with  a  million  additional  office  holders 
and  public  employees  appointed  and  retained  by  the 
cohesive  power  of  public  plunder?  Governmental 
railways  are  not  wholly  an  untried  proposition. 
Many  years  ago  they  were  experimented  with  in 
Pennsylvania,  Michigan  and  South  Carolina,  and 
were  abandoned  because  of  glaring,  galling  and  dis- 
graceful inefficiency  in  the  management.  If  the  com- 
plaint of  discrimination  in  rates  to  favored  shippers 
is  now  justifiably  urged  as  against  private  manage- 
ment, it  would  be  many  times  worse  under  public 
control.  The  energy  and  sagacity  of  every  Con- 
gressman and  Senator  would  be  directed  towards 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCEACY        169 

securing  favored  rates  for  the  products  of  his  sec- 
tion, as,  on  a  much  smaller  scale,  we  now  see  sec- 
tional strife  before  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee 
of  each  succeeding  Congress.  When  the  government 
takes  over  the  railways,  then  let  Socialism  become 
complete,  so  that  the  retroactive  result  will  come 
sooner  and  more  decisively. 

GOVEENMENT    TELEGEAPH    AND    PUBLIC 
UTILITIES  OWNEESHIP  AND  CONTEOL. 

Eegarding  telegraphs,  telephones,  express  com- 
panies and,  in  fact,  all  other  so-called  public  utilities, 
the  same  objection  to  government  ownership  and 
controllership  applies  as  to  railroads. 

The  only  honest  object  the  government  could  have 
in  owning  or  controlling  any  of  these  properties 
would  be  to  prevent  private  monopoly  or  the  "per- 
nicious abuse  of  private  ownership, "  or  to  so  reduce 
the  operating  price  to  the  people  as  to  absorb  or 
diminish  private  wealth  accumulation.  This  could 
be  accomplished  only  by  equally  efficient  and  eco- 
nomic management  (which  is  by  no  means  to  be  ex- 
pected, much  less  guaranteed) ;  but  if  guaranteed, 
it  would  result  in  a  saving  of  only  a  small  sum  per 
year  to  each  of  eighty  to  one  hundred  million  people, 
which  would  be  scarcely  appreciable,  and  would  not 
be  accumulated  as  three-fourths  or  more  of  it  now 
is  by  the  private  owners  of  said  systems.  Thus  by 
these  acts  of  public  intrusion  into  private  business, 
even  assuming  the  management  to  be  equally  frugal 
and  efficient,  there  would  be  a  loss  to  the  country  of 
an  accumulation  of  many  million  dollars  annually 
and  an  almost  certain  deficiency  of  many  millions 
more. 


170          MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

There  is  as  much  reason  for  public  ownership  or 
controllership  of  many  other  enterprises  as  there  is 
for  these  so-called  public  utilities,  the  only  certain 
result  if  all  were  taken  over  being  to  dimmish  ac- 
cumulation and  with  it  to  correspondingly  diminish 
efficient  management,  and  to  increase  corruption 
and  fraud.  It  must  be  admitted  that  accumulation 
is  necessary.  If  not,  then  the  status  quo  is  neces- 
sary or  diminution  is  necessary.  If  public  operation 
or  even  cumulative  taxation  tends  to  curtail  accumu- 
lation, then  both  are  injurious. 

The  annual  income  of  the  richest  man  in  America 
is  not  over,  say,  $25,000,000,  and  this  under  Tim- 
ocracy  would  be  divided  after  the  first  generation. 
The  incomes  of  all  would  be  but  little  for  all,  and 
the  most  that  government  promises  by  its  control 
is  to  save  this  amount  to  the  people,  thus  taking 
it  away  from  those  who  would  conserve  it  and  give 
it  to  officials  or  to  those  by  whom  it  would  be  dissi- 
pated and  squandered.  Enterprises  must  be  run 
at  a  profit,  else  civilization  will  turn  backward.  This 
profit  can  never  be  excessive  IF  MONOPOLY  IS 
PEEVENTED. 

CAMPAIGNING  AND  "LOG  ROLLING"  LEGIS- 
LATION AS  CONNECTED  WITH  PUBLIC 
OWNERSHIP. 

The  telegraph  system  in  England  was  govern- 
mentalized — that  is,  attached  to  the  post  office  sys- 
tem— in  1870,  and  has  since  then  been  publicly  op- 
erated. During  the  first  two  years  the  receipts  paid 
interest  on  the  investment.  Since  then  there  has 
been  a  deficiency.  In  1872,  said  deficiency  was  about 
£120,000,  or  nearly  $600,000.  It  has  been  annually 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY        171 

increasing.  In  1892  it  was  over  £950,000,  or  about 
$5,000,000.  In  1906,  with  the  largest  business  ever 
known,  $29,578,880,  the  loss  was  over  $5,000,000. 
The  reason  for  this  is  inefficient  and  uneconomic  op- 
eration. The  political  parties  and  partisans  respec- 
tively bid  for  the  vote  of  public  employees  by  prom- 
ising to  increase  the  wage  rates,  or  to  lessen  the 
working  hours.  Candidates  promised  to  the  voters 
certain  postal  and  telegraphic  favors,  conditioned 
on  their  election,  and  many  other  abuses  have  crept 
in.  In  a  country,  vast  in  domain  like  America,  and 
one  in  which  suffrage  is  universal,  these  abuses 
would  be  intensified.  Post  office  buildings  are  now 
constructed  where  not  needed  because  of  "log  roll- 
ing" legislation  to  satisfy  Congressional  constitu- 
encies. If  the  railways  and  telegraphs  were  publicly 
owned,  ambitious  men  would  promise  an  appropria- 
tion to  build  one  thousand  miles  of  additional  track 
or  pole  lines  in  every  county,  in  their  districts.  Rail- 
roads of  different  descriptions  would  be  promised 
from  every  valley  to  every  mountain  top ;  and,  more 
than  promises,  many  of  these  would  become  actuali- 
ties. Would  not  all  of  this  give  employment  to 
workmen!  say  the  advocates  of  public  ownership. 
Yes,  and  at  exorbitant  wage  rates.  The  business 
would,  of  necessity,  where  improvements  were  not 
made  in  response  to  business  demand,  be  operated  at 
a  great  loss,  entailing  ruinous  taxation  for  deficien- 
cies as  well  as  for  original  construction. 

The  national  indebtedness  of  America  would  soon 
be  as  great  per  capita  as  it  now  is  in  Australia  or 
New  Zealand,  and  be  represented  by  comparatively 
worthless  properties  which  were  prematurely,  un- 
wisely, and,  in  many  cases,  corruptedly  and  fraudu- 
lently conceived  and  constructed.  Enterprise,  to  be 


172         MILLIONISM   VS.  SOCIALISM 

beneficial, must  be  carried  out  on  business  principles, 
that  is,  on  the  basis  of  "will  it  pay?"  Private  capi- 
tal often  builds  in  advance  of  the  "will  it  pay  now?" 
period,  but  not  with  reference  to  placating  or  re- 
warding a  Congressional  constituency  for  electing 
some  man  to  office.  The  ' '  will  it  pay  ? ' '  with  private 
capital  is  with  foresight  and  good  judgment  from 
the  standpoint  of  an  investor,  and  this  is  the  only 
proper  standpoint. 

GOVEENMENTAL  PATERNALISM. 

The  government  of  the  United  States  of  America 
may,  with  a  tendency  toward  facetiousness,  be 
deemed  an  Avuncular  one;  but,  under  no  pretext 
whatsoever  should  it  be  deemed  a  paternal  one.  The 
interesting  old  gentleman  who  stands  for  our  sov- 
ereignty may  be  considered  our  Uncle  Sam,  but 
never  our  Father  Sam.  When  it  was  believed  that 
God  created  kings,  the  paternal  idea  was  consistent, 
however  ridiculous  and  ill  conceived.  When  the  peo- 
ple create  not  a  king,  but  a  servant,  the  paternal  idea 
is  inconsistent  as  well  as  ridiculous.  Paternalism 
is  but  a  mild  name  for  Socialism. 

PUBLIC  FRANCHISES  TO  PRIVATE  COR- 
PORATIONS. 

It  is  by  no  means  conclusive  that  a  governmental 
corporation  having  privileges,  franchises  or  prop- 
erty at  its  disposal  should  not  dispose  of  them  at  all, 
but  that  it  should  retain,  use  or  operate,  as  the  case 
may  suggest,  all  of  such  valuable  opportunities 
itself.  The  power  to  grant  or  to  confer  is  one  thing, 
and  the  expediency  of  retaining  and  operating  is 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY        173 

another.  Governmental  corporations,  even  when 
honest  and  capable,  are  in  no  sense  specialized  for 
or  adapted  to  the  performance  of  business  functions. 
It  is  better  therefore  that  they  should  grant  or  sub- 
let these  privileges  and  opportunities  to  corpora- 
tions that  are  specialized  and  adapted,  provided  al- 
ways that  the  price  and  terms  are  fair,  equitable  and 
reasonable,  and  the  best  that  can  be  secured  at  the 
time.  The  objection  should  not  be  to  the  act  of 
granting,  but  to  the  unfairness  of  the  terms,  and 
to  the  fact  that  the  consideration  paid  goes  to  bosses 
and  spoilsmen  rather  than  to  the  treasury  of  the 
governmental  corporation.  The  private  specialized 
corporation  usually  gets  by  far  the  better  end  of 
the  deal.  And  why  is  this  so?  The  reply  is  solely 
and  only  by  reason  of  the  relative  incompetency, 
short-sightedness,  indifference  or  dishonesty  of  the 
governmental  corporation 's  directors.  We  have  seen 
in  Vienna,  Budapest,  and  other  European  cities 
that  make  no  pretension  to  democratic  government, 
that  contracting  private  companies  ofttimes  get  by 
far  the  worse  end  of  the  deal,  and  that  they  are 
often  unable  to  comply  with  the  rigorous  conditions 
that  the  astute  governmental  directors,  who  are  not 
the  products  of  boss  oligarchies,  often  impose.  We 
do  not  often  hear  of  ' i  grabs  "  or  of  stolen  franchises 
in  these  cities.  In  some  cases  public  operation  is 
found  to  be  reasonably  safe  in  such  cities  solely 
because  of  the  efficiency  of  their  governments.  Still, 
be  the  municipal  control  ever  so  capable,  it  is  better 
to  pursue  the  plan  of  specialization  of  function.  It 
is  difficult  to  understand  why  well-meaning  social 
reformers  who  acknowledge  the  danger  and  dishon- 
esty of  public  grants  of  public  property,  yet  favor 
the  public  retention  and  operation  of  that  property, 


174          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

when  they  well  understand  that  inefficient  and  dis- 
honest operation  may  entail  far  greater  and  more 
complicated  dishonesty  and  wrong  than  an  out  and 
out  sale  or  even  a  donation  might  do.  The  explana- 
tion probably  lies  in  the  glaring  lump  sum  fraud 
in  the  one  case  and  the  obscure,  but  none  the  less 
atrocious,  fraud  in  the  other.  The  remedy  is  to  elect 
better,  wiser,  and  more  honest  goyernmental  direc- 
tors. But  boss  oligarchism  is  not  likely  ever  to  ap- 
ply this  needful  remedy.  Again,  we  say,  it  is  useless 
to  expect  "golden  actions  from  leaden  instincts." 
As  from  nothing,  nothing  conies,  so  from  inefficiency 
and  corruption  nothing  else  can  come,  whether  as 
regards  public  grants  or  public  operations. 

Practical  business  men,  whose  "money  makes  the 
mare  go"  (not  theoretical  social  reformers,  whose 
ideas  would  make  the  money  go),  know  full  well  that 
private  capital  would  ask  no  better  investment  to- 
day than  to  take,  at  a  fair  valuation,  every  publicly 
operated  commercial  plant  or  property  in  the  entire 
world,  and,  at  the  same  price  for  service,  receive  for 
its  profit  only  the  savings  of  more  efficient  private 
management.  There  is  scarcely  an  isolated  instance 
where  the  public  plant  is  now  self-sustaining,  that 
private  capital  would  not  eagerly  grasp.  In  many 
cases  more  would  be  paid  than  a  fair  valuation,  and 
less  would  be  charged  than  existing  prices  for  serv- 
ice, and  still  the  private  corporation  would  accumu- 
late wealth. 

TEEMS  FOE  FEANCHISES  TO  PEIVATE 
COMPANIES. 

Almost  every  municipality  has  certain  enterprises 
called  PUBLIC  utilities,  viz. :  water  and  sewerage, 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY        175 

transportation,  lighting  and  telephone  service. 
Water  and  sewerage  is  usually  under  municipal  con- 
trol, and  the  tendency  now  is  to  municipalize  all  the 
others. 

All  should  be  PEIVATE  enterprises,  because  in 
their  nature  they  are  revenue  producing.  The  longer 
the  term  for  which  a  franchise  is  granted  the  greater 
is  the  inducement  for  private  investment,  and, 
usually,  the  better  is  the  equipment  and  the  more 
efficient  the  management  because  it  pays  to  install 
the  best  facilities. 

As  an  original  proposition  and  not  as  subsequent 
confiscation,  the  municipality  might  exact  from  such 
companies  ONE  charge  only  and  subject  them  to  no 
taxation,  except  the  cumulative.  This  charge  should 
be  a  certain  percentage  of  their  gross  earnings,  say, 
for  example,  one-tenth  to  one-seventh  thereof.  The 
proposition  to  private  investors  should  then  be :  "At 
what  price  will  you  do  this  business  for,  say,  fifty 
years,  with  the  further  condition  that,  whenever 
gross  earnings  bear  a  greater  ratio  to  track  and  car 
mileage  (if  a  transportation  company)  or  to  pipe 
line  mileage  (if  a  water  or  sewerage  company),  or  to 
pole  line  mileage  (if  a  lighting  or  a  telephone  com- 
pany), than  before,  then  the  percentage  of  said  earn- 
ings to  be  paid  to  the  city  shall  be  proportionately 
increased!"  If  ever  said  gross  earnings  bear  a  less 
ratio  than  before,  then  said  percentage  shall  be  cor- 
respondingly decreased.  If  the  ratio  is  substantially 
maintained,  then  the  percentage  is  to  be  unaltered. 
The  tendency  of  this  would  be  to  stimulate  and  in- 
crease both  construction  and  operation  pari  passu 
with  increased  population  and  business,  and  to  an 
extent  fully  equal  to  the  progress  and  growth  of  the 
municipality.  Often,  though  earnings  are  largely  in- 


176          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

creased,  track  and  car  mileage  is  not  increased,  and 
the  same  is  true  as  to  pipe  and  pole  line  mileage. 
Often  also  a  certain  per  car  charge  is  exacted,  thus 
tempting  the  company  to  cripple  its  service  and  in- 
convenience its  passengers  or  patrons,  all  of  which 
is  ill  advised  and  unnecessary. 

In  a  well-regulated  city  this  income  alone  might 
be  sufficient  to  pay  all  municipal  expenses,  thus  ren- 
dering all  other  taxation  unnecessary,  or  reducing  it 
to  a  minimum  so  inconsiderable  as  to  be  of  no  ap- 
preciable burden.  The  same  plan  might  be  applied 
to  overland  railways,  telegraphs  and  telephone  com- 
panies, the  revenue  in  this  case  to  go  to  the  national 
government,  as  such  companies  should  operate  only 
under  national  charters.  From  this  source  a  well- 
equipped  and  properly  confined  national  government 
might  derive  a  large  part  if  not  all  the  revenue  it 
required.  It  is  probable  that  some  day  State  gov- 
ernments will  be  abolished  and  that  the  powers  that 
they  now  exercise,  or  such  of  them  as  should  be 
continued,  will  be  divided  between  the  CITY  and 
the  NATION,  thus  insuring  greater  localization  and 
greater  nationalization,  as  a  result  of  which  many 
improvements,  not  now  practicable  because  of  use- 
less State  interference,  could  be  adopted. 


CHAPTER  VII 

Money  a  Measure  of  Value:  A  Medium  of  Ex- 
change: Its  Qualities  of  Fitness:  No  Absolutely 
Non- Variable  Standard:  Gold  the  Best  at  Present: 
Paper  Currency  Preferable :  Means  of  Supplying  It : 
Currency  and  Credit:  Central  Bank  Undesirable: 
Elasticity:  " Emergency "  Money:  Plan  for  Issue 
by  Clearing  Houses:  Postal  Savings  Banks:  No 
Currency  Issuing  Monopoly. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

PROPOSITION  SIXTH. 

Money  a  Standard  of  Value  and  Facilitator  of 
Exchange;  Gold  Only;  Currency  Payable  in  Gold 
and  Issued  ~by  Government  Only;  Banking  and  Cur- 
rency. 

In  the  discussion  of  a  sociological  question  allu- 
sion to  money  is  seldom  necessary  and  is  often  con- 
fusing. In  such  discussions  WEALTH,  PROP- 
ERTY and  actual  utilities  for  which  labor  will  ex- 
change itself  are  the  subjects  to  be  considered.  Es- 
sentially money  is  a  standard  of  value  and  facili- 
tator of  exchange.  It  usually  represents  so  small  a 
part  of  the  value  that  commands  labor  that  allusion 
to  it  is  seldom  necessary  except  when  discussing 
questions  relating  exclusively  to  Standards  of  value 
and  Exchanges. 

The  Standard  of  Value  should  be  some  one  (never 

177 


178          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

more  than  one)  commodity  put  in  convenient  form 
or  shape  for  which  labor  will  exchange  itself.  Its 
qualities  of  excellence  or  fitness  are,  convenience  in 
handling  and  non-fluctuation  in  value  as  measured 
by  the  average  of  other  commodities.  No  absolutely 
non-variable  standard  has  as  yet  been  devised.  The 
best  that  is  now  known  is  the  metal  GOLD.  Intrin- 
sic value  as  applied  to  gold  is,  to  a  great  extent,  a 
fancy;  but,  by  ages  of  persistence  it  has  become  a 
fact  sufficiently  enduring  to  warrant  its  adoption  as 
the  "STANDARD"  of  value  for  some  time  in  the 
future.  This  metal  has  therefore  been  adopted  by 
the  leading  civilizations  of  the  earth,  and  thus  it 
should  remain  till  something  better  can  be  substi- 
tuted. A  practically  non-variable  standard  of 
weight  and  measure  can  be  secured,  as  gravity  and 
distance  do  not  vary  or  fluctuate.  Value,  however, 
depends  on  many  conditions  such  as  quantity,  qual- 
ity and  facility  for  production  and  utilization,  either 
changing  as  to  any  commodity  (gold  included) 
changes  its  value  relative  to  other  commodities ;  and, 
since,  change  in  these  respects  is  the  invariable 
course  of  nature,  no  standard  of  value  good  for  all 
time  can  likely  be  secured,  but  some  standard  must 
be  agreed  upon  even  though  time  and  changing  con- 
ditions may  require  its  abandonment  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  some  other. 

As  has  been  stated,  GOLD  at  present  is  the  best. 

If  all  exchanges  into  which  the  standard  of  value 
enters  were  concluded  at  once,  the  fluctuating  char- 
acter of  any  standard  would  be  of  little  consequence ; 
but  when  in  any  transaction  the  element  of  TIME 
enters,  the  variableness  of  the  standard  may  injure 
or  benefit  the  debtor  or  creditor  according  as  the 
same  may  increase  or  decrease.  If  one  man  loans 


TIMOCEACY    VS.  DEMOCRACY         179 

25.8  grains  of  gold  to  another  man  for  a  term  of  ten 
years,  justice  demands  that  value  equal  to  25.8 
grains  of  gold  when  loaned  should  be  returned  when 
paid. 

It  therefore  follows  that  the  standard,  whatever  it 
may  be,  should  be  made  by  agreement  or  law,  the 
subject  of  REVALUATION  and  readjustment  at 
stated  intervals  of  time.  Variation  now  applies  to 
gold  less  than  to  any  other  equally  suitable  com- 
modity, hence,  for  the  present,  gold  should  be  the 
standard,  but  as  a  circulating  medium,  paper  cur- 
rency, redeemable  in  gold,  is  preferable. 

CURRENCY  AND  CREDIT. 

We  have  available  FOUR  plans  of  obtaining  cur- 
rency, as  follows: 

1st,  An  independent  bank  issue,  which  is  unde- 
sirable. 

2nd,  A  combination  of  all  banks  to  secure  each 
bank's  issue. 

3rd,  A  specially  chartered  Central  or  Association 
Bank. 

4th,  A  Government  issue  independent  of  all  banks. 

An  ENFORCED  association  of  all  banks  to  pro- 
vide a  fund  with  which  to  redeem  the  currency  of 
any  bank  is  kindred  in  kind  to  a  similar  EN- 
FORCED association  to  make  good  the  deposits  of 
any  bank,  and  is  not  to  be  recommended,  except  as 
to  emergency  currency  as  is  hereinafter  suggested. 

A  CENTRAL  BANK  OR  CURRENCY  ISSUING 
MONOPOLY. 

A  great  Central  Bank  or  any  institution  (call  it 
what  we  may)  chartered  by  the  Government  and  by 


180          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

it  granted  the  MONOPOLY  of  issuing  currency  is  a 
surrender  by  the  Government  of  its  important  con- 
stitutional prerogative  to  COMMERCIAL  INTER- 
ESTS. "To  COIN  money  and  regulate  its  value" 
is,  by  implication,  supplemented  by  Court  decisions, 
a  right  to  "COIN"  (print  and  issue)  any  substitute 
for  coin. 

Such  an  institution  would  necessarily  be  owned  by 
large  capitalists  or  by  banks  exclusively.  If  banks 
subscribed  to  its  stock  in  proportion  to  their  own 
capitalization  a  few  of  the  largest  banks  would  con- 
trol a  majority  thereof.  As  these  large  Banks  are 
themselves  controlled  (and  in  some  cases  owned)  by 
a  very  few  men,  these  few  men  would,  by  the  asso- 
ciation's monopoly,  control  the  currency  issuing 
power  of  the  entire  United  States. 

The  Government  should  provide  and  maintain  a 
uniform  and  stable  CIRCULATING  MEDIUM  to 
the  extent  of  such  an  amount  per  capita  as  is  by 
experience  deemed  adequate  and  sufficient,  but  it 
cannot  well  provide  for  ELASTICITY  or  EMER- 
GENCY conditions. 

This,  therefore,  should  be  left  to  the  banks,  as  it 
is  only  a  temporary  expedient  to  bridge  over,  as  it 
were,  a  period  when,  by  commercial  stringency,  the 
normal  amount  of  currency  is  insufficient. 

Lack  of  currency  does  not  indicate  bank  insol- 
vency. It  follows,  therefore,  that  banks  that  are 
sound  should  have  some  means  of  securing  tempo- 
rary relief.  This  could  be  accomplished  through 
CLEARING  HOUSE  ASSOCIATIONS.  The  mem- 
bers of  any  clearing  house  could  deposit  such  of 
their  securities  or  commercial  Paper  as  was  accept- 
able to  the  officers  or  governors  thereof  and  receive 
therefor  in  certificates  or  emergency  currency  an 


TIMOCRACY   VS.  DEMOCRACY        181 

agreed  percentage  of  the  face  value  thereof.  These 
should  be  an  obligation  of  all  the  clearing  house 
banks.  The  Government  could  then  afford  to  give 
them  sanction  and  validity,  provided  the  joint  guar- 
antee was  unquestioned,  and  provision  for  the 
speedy  return  and  cancellation  of  said  notes  or  their 
equivalent  was  made  by  a  cumulative  interest  charge 
on  the  time  basis.  Thus  the  JOINT  BANK  GUAR- 
ANTEE plan  would  apply  to  EMERGENCY  CUR- 
RENCY because  the  Government  could  not  well  nor 
expeditiously  handle  that  business.  It  could  not 
well  pass  on  the  character  of  commercial  paper  and 
banks  would  have  to  use  this  in  most  cases,  as  their 
funds  are  not  invested  in  high  class  bonds  if  their 
business  has  been  to  accommodate  the  commercial 
borrower.  To  a  limited  extent  this  system  has  been 
tried  and  works  well.  If  perfected  in  details  it 
should  be  adequate  for  all  needs  and  would  be  sim- 
pler than  a  Central  Bank.  Country  Banks  could  get 
currency  from  their  CITY  correspondents.  This 
is  preferable  to  a  MONOPOLISTIC  BANK  OR  AS- 
SOCIATION. 

To  avoid  panics,  it  is  better  to  avoid  the  condi- 
tions that  cause  them,  viz.,  the  over  extension  of 
credit,  than  to  provide  conditions  for  relieving  them, 
by  creating  a  currency  issuing  monopoly. 

If  a  regular  Government  issue  of,  say,  $30 
per  capita  should  be  deemed  too  large  or  too  small, 
it  could  be  regulated  either  way  in  connection  with 
the  Government's  BOND  issuing  or  TAXING 
power.  When  banks  desired  it  the  Government 
might  reduce  any  currency  plethora  by  exchanging 
bonds  therefor.  It  is  not  necessary  to  provide  for 
the  reduction  of  a  currency  plethora  with  the  same 


182          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

expedition  that  it  may  be  necessary  to  supply  a  cur- 
rency deficiency. 

In  order  to  meet  this  exigency  any  reasonable  ex- 
pedient should  be  resorted  to  before  the  Government 
relinquishes  one  of  its  most  important  prerogatives 
and  transfers  it  to  what  must  inevitably  be  CON- 
TEOL  by  a  small  coterie  of  currency  issuing  monop- 
olists, if  delegated  to  a  CENTRAL  BANK,  who 
might  use  their  power  far  more  ABUSIVELY  and 
discriminately  than  any  monopoly  that  it  is  now  try- 
ing to  suppress.  Why  should  the  Government  seek 
to  suppress  monopolies,  which,  when  they  exist  at 
all,  do  so  by  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  and  then  cre- 
ate a  monopoly  that  could  not  possibly  exist  unless 
by  Government  creation!  The  segregation  of  Com- 
mercial Monopolies  undoubtedly  causes  some  incon- 
venience; but  that  inconvenience  is  deemed  prefer- 
able to  the  perpetuation  of  monopoly. 

Normal  currency  represents  checks  payable  to 
bearer.  When  issued  by  the  Government  it  is 
EVERYBODIES'  check  backed  by  everybodies'  tax 
contribution,  hence  nobody  can  discredit  it  who  has 
faith  in  the  Government.  Of  course  Governments 
are  not  always  stable,  but  when  they  are  not,  all  pri- 
vate property  is  in  danger.  In  countries  where  cen- 
tral banks  through  branch  banks  virtually  control 
the  banking  business,  conditions  are  different  from 
those  in  America  where  small  independent  banks  are 
often  a  great  convenience  to  the  people. 

POSTAL  SAVINGS  BANKS. 

Corresponding  to  Shakespeare's  simile  as  to  ad- 
versity, this  system  "is  like  unto  a  toad,  ugly,  but 
not  very  venomous.'7  It  wears  TWO  jewels 


TIMOCKACY  VS.  DEMOCRACY    183 

(neither  very  precious)  in  its  head.  Its  ugliness 
consists  in  the  fact  that  it  is  not  the  proper  business 
of  a  Government ;  but,  since  interest  rates  are  so  low 
as  not  to  become  seriously  competitive  with  private 
banking  institutions,  it  is  not  very  venomous.  The 
two  jewels  are :  It  discourages  the  HOARDING  and 
EXPORTATION  of  currency.  As  long  as  we  have 
a  Governmental  Post  Office,  which  is  maintained  by 
the  same  social  status  that  needs  governmental  sav- 
ings banks,  it  may  be  well  to  continue  the  latter  as 
an  adjunct  to  the  former. 

Far  be  it  from  the  purpose  of  Timocracy  to  advo- 
cate the  performance  of  any  function  by  Govern- 
ment that  can  be  performed  by  private  agencies,  but 
it  is  acknowledged  to  be  the  proper  function  of  Gov- 
ernment to  "coin"  gold  and  "regulate  its  value," 
from  which  the  issuance  of  currency  seems  to  be  a 
logical  sequence,  provided  a  plan  is  at  hand  for  sup- 
plying EMERGENCY  issues,  and  also  for  securing 
GOLD  for  the  settlement  of  foreign  balances. 

Currency  and  Credit  have  no  essential  bearing  on 
the  fundamentals  of  Timocracy  except  that  it  op- 
poses a  private  monopoly  in  the  issuance  of  cur- 
rency as  it  does  all  other  private  monopoly. 

It  advocates  a  PUBLIC  MONOPOLY  in  the  per- 
formance of  this  duty,  the  same  as  in  all  other  func- 
tions that  offer  no  reward  for  private  endeavor,  as 
the  issuance  of  the  CIRCULATING  medium  should 
not. 

The  Government  should  be  its  own  banker;  it 
should  collect  no  revenue  in  excess  of  its  own  needs, 
hence  should  have  no  funds  to  deposit  in  the  coffers 
of  favored  banks. 


CHAPTEE  VIII 

Universal  Peace:  Three  Leading  Nations  Could 
Establish  It:  Sentiment  of  Patriotism  Delays  It: 
To  Whom  Timocracy  Should  Appeal :  The  Practica- 
bility of  Timocracy :  A  Glimpse  Into  the  Future. 

CHAPTEE  VIII 

PEOPOSITION  SEVENTH. 

That  Universal  Peace,  Industrialism  and  Produc- 
tion should  be  the  Universal  Policy  of  All  Nations 
and  People. 

To  the  above  proposition  there  is  scarce  an  indi- 
vidual who  will  dissent.  In  the  language  of  Benja- 
min Franklin,  "  there  never  was  a  good  war  nor  a 
bad  peace."  This  statement  is  almost  absolutely 
true.  "War  is  a  game  that  kings  could  not  play  if 
men  were  not  fools. "  In  1909  more  than  70  per 
cent,  of  the  revenue  of  the  United  States  of  America 
was  spent  for  past  and  future  wars.  It  is  about  as 
useless  to  expect  universal  peace  whilst  human  na- 
ture is  as  it  now  is,  as  it  would  be  to  expect  water  to 
flow  up  hill  whilst  gravity  operates  as  it  now  does. 
If  no  man  would  enlist  and  if  none  would  enforce 
conscription  there  could  be  no  armies  or  navies. 

The  "meek  may  inherit  the  earth,"  but  it  will  not 
be  till  all  are  meek.  If  war  tended  more  largely 
than  it  does  to  kill  off  the  weaklings  or  worthless 
specimens  of  the  human  race,  its  ravages  would  not 

184 


TIMOCEACY  VS.  DEMOCEACY    185 

be  so  baneful,  but  the  reverse  of  this  is  usually  the 
tendency.  If  three  of  the  leading  nations  of  the 
earth  could  agree  as  to  arbitration  they  could  prob- 
ably enforce  all  others  to  arbitrate,  and  all  ques- 
tions, even  those  of  honor,  are  arbitrable. 

But  as  long  as  THEEE  cannot  agree  it  is  useless 
to  expect  all  to  agree.  If  only  the  English  speaking 
people  of  the  earth  could  unite  under  one  govern- 
ment (as  they  could  do  on  the  basis  of  Timocratic 
Equitable  Eelativity)  they  could  almost  command 
world- wide  peace.  The  statement  that  ' '  to  preserve 
peace  we  must  be  prepared  for  war"  is  unfortu- 
nately to  a  great  extent  true  as  long  as  any  nation 
is  prepared  for  war.  How,  therefore,  can  any  na- 
tion be  prevented  from  being  prepared  for  war? 
Either  by  the  voluntary  act  of  its  citizens  or  by  the 
COEECION  of  other  nations. 

As  long  as  the  sentiment  of  PATEIOTISM  trans- 
cends most  all  other  sentiments  no  nation's  own 
citizens  will  prevent  it  from  being  in  a  state  of  pre- 
paredness for  war  to  the  extent  that  it  is  capable  of 
being  so  prepared.  Education  along  the  lines  of 
voluntary  AEBITEATION  may  in  time  accomplish 
the  much  desired  end,  and  certain  it  is  that  effort 
in  that  direction  is  most  praise-worthy,  but  the  sen- 
timent of  PATEIOTISM  is  so  deep-seated  that  war 
and  useless  GOVEENMENTALISM  will  for  some 
time  consume  the  life  blood  of  the  producer. 

TO  WHOM  TIMOCEACY  SHOULD  APPEAL. 

Timocracy  should  appeal  to  all  millionaires  who 
are  not  monopolists;  to  merchants  and  manufac- 
turers; to  farmers  and  stock  raisers;  to  lawyers, 
doctors,  preachers  and  professors — in  fact  to  all 


186          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

citizens  who  oppose  monopoly  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  mob  on  the  other.  Suffragettes  could  vastly 
strengthen  their  cause  by  proposing  equitable  in- 
stead of  universal  suffrage  for  both  men  and  women. 

THE  PEACTICABILITY  OF  TIMOCEACY. 

The  practicability  of  ever  being  able  to  adopt 
measures  akin  to  those  in  the  foregoing  pages  is  of 
course  a  very  important  matter.  People,  it  is  said 
(neither  the  masses  nor  monopolists),  will  never 
voluntarily  curtail  their  own  power.  This  is  not 
wholly  true.  There  are  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
voters  in  the  United  States  who  for  a  few  dollars 
per  head  would  vote  for  an  empire  or  almost  for 
their  own  extermination,  and  multi-millionaires  who 
oppose  monopoly.  Eightly  understood,  however, 
there  would  be  no  unjust  curtailment  of  power. 
Every  man  and  woman  would  vote  who  paid  $100 
per  year  in  residential  rent,  a  part  of  which  repre- 
sents his  or  her  contribution  to  governmental  sup- 
port. Those  who  pay  more  residential  rent  or  who 
own  their  residences  would  cast  more  votes,  and 
multi-millionaires,  but  not  monopolists,  could  and 
should  exist.  No  just  man  or  woman  could  reason- 
ably object  to  this.  Conservatism  and  prudence  are 
yet  in  the  ascendency  in  America.  There  are  nearly 
six  million  farm  owners  in  the  entire  country  (ex- 
act numbers  census  1900,  5,738,468).  There  are  at 
least  two  million  large  and  small  owners  of  town 
and  city  property.  In  New  York  State,  33%  per 
cent,  of  the  people,  in  1900,  owned  their  own  homes ; 
in  Massachusetts,  35  per  cent.;  in  Connecticut  and 
Ehode  Island,  28.2  per  cent.;  in  the  Southern  and 
Western  States,  45%  per  cent,  in  Texas;  47.7  per 


TIMOCRACY    VS.  DEMOCRACY         187 

cent,  in  Arkansas ;  59.1  per  cent  in  Kansas,  and  71.8 
per  cent,  in  Oklahoma  represent  the  average.  All 
these  would  be  benefited  by  wielding  a  larger  pro- 
portion of  power  than  they  now  do.  Add  to  this  the 
fair-minded  citizen,  who  opposes  monopoly  as  he 
does  a  prostituted  ballot  (whether  property  owning 
or  not,  he  is  a  rent  payer  and  consequently  would  be 
a  voter),  at  and  at  least  half  of  the  voting  popula- 
tion of  the  country  is  fairly  comprehended.  But 
whether  it  be  an  easy  task  or  not  it  will  never  be 
easier  or  more  practicable.  The  writer  believes  it 
is  practicable  by  organized  effort,  and  this  effort 
should  be  speedily  and  energetically  put  forth  first 
in  large  cities  and  then  throughout  the  country  at 
large.  If  not  taken  in  hand  the  tendency  towards 
public  ownership  or  socialism  will  grow  and  if  ever, 
even  partially,  established  it  will  cause  diminution 
of  production  and  social  degeneration.  It  will  work 
its  own  ruin,  but  it  may  be  temporarily  supplanted 
by  a  monarchy  or  an  empire.  Neither  are  desirable, 
but  government  in  the  relation  of  man's  contribu- 
tion to  it  and  of  relative  excellence  is  desirable,  and 
would  be  of  practicable  application  anywhere  on 
earth.  If  the  worth  and  wealth  of  the  country  were 
resolutely  and  earnestly  organized  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  Timocratic  Republicanism  or  some  kin- 
dred system,  Democratic  Republicanism  would  van- 
ish and  would  never  again  be  attempted  in  the  civil- 
ized world  until  all  men  are  equal  in  all  things  that 
pertain  to  manhood,  which  will  never  occur  until  this 
"too,  too,  solid  flesh  shall  melt,  thaw  and  resolve 
itself  to  a  dew";  and,  since  men  are  unequal,  this 
inequality  must  be  recognized  as  nearly  as  possible 
or  the  ends  of  justice  will  not  be  subserved  or  the 
principle  of  right  be  recognized.  Not  Equality  but 


188          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

Equitable  Relativity  is  the  climax  of  justice  in  all 
things. 

If  Timocratic  or  kindred  organizations  were  per- 
fected and  placed  on  practical  working  bases  in  all 
communities,  then,  if  they  never  accomplished  any- 
thing more,  their  use  as  a  BALANCE  OF  POWER 
would  often  command  respect  and  recognition  and, 
at  times,  dictate  measures  and  policies.  Tentanda 
via  est — The  way  should  be  tried. 

A  GLIMPSE  INTO  THE  FUTUEE. 

Since  no  human  intellect  can  take  into  considera- 
tion all  of  the  multitudinous  agencies  that  prompt 
human  actions,  all  prophets  as  far  as  exact  predic- 
tions are  concerned,  should  be  "  without  honor " 
everywhere  and  at  all  times  as  they  are  conceded  to 
be  within  their  own  country.  However,  he  who  ac- 
curately considers  most  of  these  agencies  is  most 
liable  to  be  right.  Since  the  great  philosopher  (Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer)  has  predicted  that  "the  tendency 
toward  the  dissolution  of  existing  social  conditions 
and  a  re-organization  upon  a  socialistic  basis  is  irre- 
sistible" and  that  this  will  result  in  Military  Des- 
potism (which  predictions,  judging  from  the  tenden- 
cies since  the  date  of  its  utterance,  appears  to  be 
approaching  verification) ;  and,  since  Military  Des- 
potism cannot  endure,  it  is  interesting  to  ask  in  what 
will  the  Military  Despotism  result?  Certainly  not 
in  the  re-establishment  of  Democratic  Republican- 
ism or  so-called  equality  or  Boss  Oligarchism,  be- 
cause it  will  have  been  demonstrated  to  result  in 
Socialism  and  Despotism.  Certainly  not  in  Mon- 
archy which  is  but  a  modification  of  Despotism  and 
which  would  be  disestablished  to-day  but  for  the  ob- 


TIMOCEACY   VS.  DEMOCEACY         189 

duracy  of  habit  and  aversion  to  innovation.  In 
what,  then,  will  said  Despotism  likely  result  I  Equal- 
ity, the  extreme  on  the  one  side  and  Monarchy,  the 
extreme  on  the  other,  are  both  strained  and  abnor- 
mal conditions.  Relativity  is  the  equilibrium  to- 
wards which  nature  always  tends.  Nature  does  not 
decree  that  the  Sun  and  Earth,  the  Earth  and  Moon, 
or  any  other  bodies  in  the  universe  that  are  related 
to  each  other,  shall  revolve  around  their  mutual  cen- 
ters of  gravity  in  equal  orbits,  but  in  orbits  relative 
to  the  mass  of  each.  If  this  is  true  of  Celestial  or 
Cosmological  movements,  it  must  likewise  be  true  of 
terrestrial  or  Sociological  movements,  else,  between 
the  cosmos  and  the  socios,  a  change  has  been  made 
in  nature's  operations.  If  a  change,  when,  where 
and  for  what  reason  has  said  change  taken  place? 
The  probabilities  are  that  said  tendency  toward 
equilibrium  on  bases  of  relativity  continues  through- 
out the  whole  universe,  and  throughout  all  times. 
In  social  affairs,  as  has  been  stated,  equitable  rela- 
tivity cannot  be  practically  established  on  bases  of 
personality,  that  is,  not  on  qualities  of  size,  strength, 
education,  intellectuality,  race,  color  or  previous 
condition  of  servitude.  In  other  words  it  cannot  be 
equitably  nor  practically  determined  by  what  human 
beings  are,  hence  it  must  be  determined  by  what 
they  do  or  by  what  they  own,  or  by  what  they  use, 
as  the  most  practicable  test  of  excellence.  This, 
therefore,  appears  to  be  the  normal  resultant  or 
equilibrium  between  the  strained  and  abnormal  con- 
ditions of  so-called  equality  or  Democracy  on  the 
one  hand  and  Monarchy  on  the  other.  If  this  be  so, 
why  not  institute  efforts  and  energy  calculated  to 
avert  the  intermediary  stages  of  socialism  and  Des- 
potism. Eeforms  are  usually  the  result  of  revolu- 


190          MILLIONISM    VS.  SOCIALISM 

tions.  The  reason  for  this  is  the  fact  that  correct- 
ive measures  are  not  instituted  in  time.  Strained 
conditions  intensify  and  grow  until  restraint  is  im- 
possible and  the  social  organism  becomes  ruined. 
From  this  chaos,  system  usually  results  on  bases 
less  strained  than  those  from  which  revolution  re- 
sulted. No  man  can  prophesy  with  absolute  accu- 
racy, but  such  is  liable  to  be  the  result  of  existing 
social  tendencies.  Timely  correctives  would  likely 
delay,  probably  mitigate  and  possibly  prevent  such 
future  experiences,  but  they  are  liable  to  be  post- 
poned until  the  strain  becomes  too  great.  Reforms 
appear  to  be  the  children  of  revolutions,  because 
human  beings  are  yet  the  children,  not  the  adults  of 
nature.  Solar  systems  evolve  slowly,  but  dissolve 
quickly.  It  will  be  so  with  social  systems  until  men 
are  wise  enough  to  avert  it. 

THE  LIFE  OE  DEATH  OF  PRIVATE 
OWNERSHIP. 

Timocracy  prophesies  that  Private  Ownership 
will  not  live  after  it  has  reached  monopolistic  mag- 
nitude such  as  requires  Socialistic  (or  Govern- 
mental) control  of  the  sub-structure  of  its  business. 

Monopoly  prevents  the  exercise  of  Individualism, 
hence  hastens  the  adoption  of  Socialism. 

Timocracy  prophesies  also,  that  the  Life  or  Death 
of  Popular  Government  will  depend  on  the  estab- 
lishment of  Equitable  Relativity,  instead  of  In- 
equitable Equality  for  citizenship  and  suffrage. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
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OCT  21   1947 


MAY  10  1955  LU 

'V. 


INTER-LIBRARY 

LOAN 

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